Last Thursday night Kellie and I were at small group at our friend's house. We had a great discussion concerning personal financial matters, how to be a good steward, when is enough enough, all things that young married people need to sort through. During small group the question was asked, "What would you do if you suddenly were gifted a million dollars?" I said the first thing I would do is something obscenely nice for someone I know. Really, I think the first thing I would do is an outrageous act of generosity towards someone I care about.
Then I would take my wife to the Louvre. Someday we're going to do the Paris thing. And the "vacation in the south of France" thing. And the "African safari" thing.
Then I would buy as many
LifeStraw's as I could. By the way, a LifeStraw is a really thick "straw" where adults and children can safely drink out of any water-filled area. The LifeStraw has about nine filters in it that filter out disease and water-borne illnesses. This is especially helpful for places in third-world countries where lack of clean water kills every day. By the way, illness resulting from the lack of clean water is the largest killer in our world today. You would think that the largest killer is AIDS or war, but no, lack of safe, clean, drinking water is where we need to direct the majority of our efforts if we truly want to save the world. Forget being green, we need to go clean, as in clean water.
I brought up the LifeStraw idea as a part of what I would do if I was given a large sum of cash and the room just kind of stared at me like most Americans do when they encounter something they don't understand. I tried to explain the idea, but then I gave up and decided to show the interested people the website after small group.
We got on the computer, a Window's - running desktop, and explored the glory of the LifeStraw. By the way, you can put one of these in someone's hands for about $3. Yep, less than a Mocha from Starbucks.
After we explored the LifeStraw website, complete with charts and graphical goodness, I asked if anyone had seen the coolest thing Microsoft has ever thought up. Again, stares.
Microsoft Surface. It's pretty cool. It may be the future of social computing. Some hotels are already on board. For all the woes and trouble that constitute Microsoft, Surface is pretty innovative. We watched a couple videos about the Surface thing and had a good time. Then someone brought up another innovative and cool thing to drool over, so we decided to open up another page to look at that website.
That's when the computer froze.
Apparently looking at two web pages at once is too much to handle. We were looking at some videos on what could be the future of Microsoft and then the computer freezes. I thought, WOW, Microsoft is finally coming up with some pretty innovative ideas, but then they blow it because their current stuff doesn't work.
Silly Microsoft, innovation is for Mac.
It's kind of like that guy everyone knows who tries to be someone other than himself. Just. Doesn't. Work.
Oh yeah,
Crispin Porter Bogusky, the new ad agency that Microsoft is paying $300 million dollars to create an appearance 180, uses Mac's throughout their offices. In their own words, they say, "Microsoft needs a paradigm shift." I would have only charged $200 million for that advice.
Go send a case of LifeStraws to Ethiopia.
