February 14, 2008 12:11

SI Swimsuit Issue guarantees: no recession!

Hear me out here. (Or, at least, hear Justin Fox out; he forwarded me the link.) According to Bespoke Investment Group,

We've all heard of the Super Bowl Indicator, but have you ever heard of the Swimsuit Issue Indicator? Over the last 30 years, an American has appeared on the cover of the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 15 different years. The average performance of the S&P; 500 during those 15 years is a gain of 13.9% with 13 positive years (87%). Of the fifteen years where no American appeared on the cover, the S&P; 500 has averaged a gain of only 7.2% with 11 positive years (73%). In the table below, we highlight the native country of the model appearing on each year's issue as well as the performance of the S&P; 500 that year.

And guess who's on the cover of SISI this year? Yep—Marisa Miller, born in Santa Cruz, Calif.

SI.com

Check out the numbers:

What's next—Punxsutawney Phil as jobs-outlook indicator? David Beckam's hairstyle as presidential election indicator? Al Roker as weather indicator?

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February 14, 2008 8:00

A Valentine's horoscope

I keep this card above my computer that my husband gave me for Valentine's Day years ago. Back when we still did cards on Valentine's day. Back when we still did Valentine's Day. I'm guessing 1993.

(For a bittersweet bah humbug on the Hallmark holiday, do read Nancy Gibbs' essay in this week's TIME.)

I'm an Aries. Here's what it says:

You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. Your feelings of superiority mask your total mediocrity. You are quick tempered, impatient and scornful of advice. You are a pr*ck.

Yep. That pretty much nails it. It also pretty much sums up my marriage that this is the one card I've chosen to keep all these years. Romance is as romance does; give me funny any day.

Happy V Day.

P.S. When I came downstairs this morning, there was a huge bouquet of flowers, three cards and three boxes of chocolates (one from each member of my family, including the gestating one). And not a one of the cards included a fart joke, though one featured Cupid changing up his style by mooning his subjects. So.

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February 13, 2008 12:58

This just in: Obama supports Obama

I've long aspired to work for The Onion. Only I hear their dental plan isn't as good.

But this ain't no spoof. It's fo real. Barack Obama has a new constituency: a town in Japan called, yes, Obama. From The Guardian:

As the race for the nomination heated up, the town's tourism office received a stream of calls from locals wishing Obama well. On Super Tuesday, supporters nervously clutched photos of Obama as they watched the results come in at their makeshift headquarters in a hotel, whose lobby is currently home to a large portrait of the candidate.

Funniest kicker, from AngryAsianMan:

The cities of McCain and Clinton could not be reached for comment.

Not to be outdone, says ABCnews.com,

the employees of a farming and construction machinery maker in southern Japan are cheering for the candidate whose first name is the same as one of the transportation machines they build and sell: the "Hillary."

This video ad for some T-shirt maker in Japan randomly chooses the names of the candidates to translate into kanji characters:

Hillary = First Lady, equality and office holder.
Obama = hero, wing and truth.
McCain = truth, mind, both houses.
Huckabee = he who lost 50 kg without surgery.

Just kidding about the last one. They didn't translate the Arkansas guv's name.

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February 13, 2008 10:38

Forget the Walkstation. Try the Hula Chair

Last October, I posted about a so-wacky-it's-brilliant workplace invention called the WalkStation. Steelcase, the workspace designers, came up with this answer to productivity-hobbling obesity: a treadmill equipped with a computer and stationed right inside your cubicle, so you can walk as you work. Check it out:

Steelcase collaborated with Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic:

Designed to encourage more movement by walking slowly at work, Dr. Levine estimates that users of the Walkstation have the potential to increase energy expenditure by 100 calories per hour when walking at a 1 mph rate. Thus, if obese individuals were to replace time spent sitting at the computer with 2-3 hours per day of walking computer time, and if other components of energy balance were constant, actual weight loss may result.

In my earlier post, I sort of wrote off this gadget as an example of employers going overboard in their efforts toward a fit workforce. But I stand corrected. I got 62 comments (and more directly via e-mail) from readers who said they had designed their own versions of the Walkstation, had been using it for years, and swore by it as a weight-loss/productivity-gain tool. (Check out their innovations via their links in the comments section of my post.) Steelcase, fire up thy patent lawyers.

So this time, I shall refrain from making fun of the revolutionary (to me) new office product I am about to introduce you to. This comes from my husband's friend Janey Choi, who does not let her gigs playing violin in Kanye West concerts interrupt her habit of spending hours a day on YouTube.

Behold: the Hula Chair.

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February 12, 2008 4:42

My company made me look at porn

One of the perks, if you can call it that, of working at the world's largest media company is that we get copies of our magazines for free. I began to see this as more of a curse when I realized I was drowning in my weekly accumulation of Fortune Small Business, Coastal Living, Time for Kids and People en Espanol. And I don't speak Spanish. I had become a free-magazine whore.

So I didn't really mind when the company decided to crack down on these distributions, citing the staggering costs of offering their loyal and hard-working minions a couple hundred issues of their titles without charge. The only major annoyance is getting a hold of my own magazine. I'm not kidding. It's a real challenge to score more than our allowance of one copy, which makes it tough to send comp issues to sources who'd given us hours of their time for the honor of one quote in one article. I usually have to go steal them from the lobby bins, which are zealously guarded by specially trained, free-magazine-whore fighters.

And then there's the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

NFL cheerleaders in my inbox. / SI

SISE belongs to a category unto itself. According to our corporate web site,

The Sports Illustrated annual Swimsuit Edition franchise, which includes the magazine, video, calendars and website, is the most profitable of any single magazine-branded franchise.

The issues are considered so valuable that they're not even distributed in the bins downstairs; they're doled out, copy by copy, to each employee, like glossy, perfect-bound bonuses.

So when I came in this morning, what do I find under my door but a beautifully laid out publication of porn.

Who decided I wanted to look at 100-some pages of barely dressed girls with abs made of slate and boobs that defy reason? SI boasts that women cherish the swimsuit issue because it offers us fashion ideas for the bathing season. Seriously? I'm going to don this bikini made of dental floss this summer after I've just popped out Baby #2?

Look. I'm no prude. And it's not the same thing as working in an office whose walls are plastered with pin-ups, like the women workers at Halliburton/KBR had to endure. Still, I'd rather be offered the option of picking up a copy, rather than have it stuffed under my door like some urgent memo. What I want when I step into my office is a cup of tea. Not NFL cheerleaders in thongs.

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