Get sedated at the Anesthesia Lounge

Reportedly the most popular Uber destination in Idaho is the downtown Boise Cactus Bar. Other bars downtown include Dirty Little Roddy’s, Humpin’ Hannah’s and Liquid Lounge (and Solid Grill & Bar).  

Inspiration for naming a drinking establishment can come from almost anywhere. Down the hall from the cafeteria in the Central Tower of the Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center here in Boise I saw a room sign for the Anesthesia Lounge.

That name has already been used for a bar in St. Louis, a bar in Hialeah, Florida, and another in Panama City, Florida.

Curiously it also has been filed on August 1, 2017 (based on first use on January 1, 2016) as a trademark for:

"Computer software for use in enabling the delivery, distribution and transmission of digital music and entertainment material on the Internet; Digital media, namely, downloadable recordings featuring music for purchase, download, broadcast or streaming."

Over two decades ago, when I lived in Columbus, Ohio, there was a bar on High Street called The Library. When parents called a dorm room at Ohio State University, a roommate could truthfully state that the child they wanted to talk with was away at The Library.   

How to build a bad presentation – describe a problem but not a good solution

 

On December 21st at Jane Genova’s Speechwriter-Ghostwriter blog she posted about The Atlantic – Return of Paywall. She linked to a Wall Street Journal article which told how, as of January 2018, that magazine is going back to requiring a subscription if you want to read more than the complimentary ten article a month.

But there is no good reason to pay for a subscription. That magazine is included in the EBSCO MasterFILE Premier online database which is widely available via public libraries – including where Jane lives in Mahoning County, Ohio (and where I live in Ada County, Idaho).  

Your library card number is all you need to get at a lot of great magazines from your personal computer. I’ve discussed Jane’s whining before on July 30, 2016 in a post titled Going around pesky periodical paywalls by using databases from your friendly local public library and on February 25, 2017 in another post titled How to research: If you can’t get in by the front door, then use the side door.

Rather hilariously in yet another post on December 21st she told us to Show, Don’t Tell.

 

For Halloween 2017 the Angus Reid Institute asked Canadians what they were most afraid of. Three most common answers were Illness/health care related, Death/dying or Economic/financial, and Nothing. Public speaking was way down at number 26.

I often read claims like this one or that one that public speaking supposedly is the number one fear in North America – without reference to any data from Canada. Near Halloween we commonly see surveys about fears, and this year there was an article posted on October 30, 2017 at the web site for the Angus Reid Institute titled Scary boo: From spiders & snakes to death & big government, Canadians reveal what scares them most. Their results from a survey of 1504 adults are shown above in a horizontal bar chart.(Click on it to see a larger, clearer view).

What is unusual about these results is that this question was Open-ended (free response). Surveys more commonly ask Close-ended (fixed alternative) questions which are multiple-choice. Open-ended questions are ‘essay questions’ that allow for an emotional response. But answers to open-ended questions must be processed further (sorted or categorized). Most other questions in this survey were Close-ended and about trick or treating on Halloween.

Back on June 15, 2015 I blogged about another Angus Reid survey with Close-ended questions in a post titled Snakes are the most common fear for Canadians, followed by heights and public speaking.

More speechwriting resources from the Congressional Research Service (CRS)

Back on May 23, 2010 I blogged about Speechwriting advice U.S. Citizens already have paid for and referred to Speechwriting in Perspective: A Brief Guide to Effective and Persuasive Communication which is Congressional Research Service Report #98-170 which you can download as a 26-page .pdf file here or here.

When I recently did a Google search I also found two brief documents. One is Speechwriting Resources: Fact Sheet (their R44239 from November 4, 2015) which can be downloaded here. It refers to Finding Quotes for Speeches: Fact Sheet (their CRS Report R44200) which can be downloaded here.  

An image of the U.S. Capitol came from Wikimedia Commons.

Is it still cornbread if it has more flour than cornmeal?

I don’t think so. My idea of what cornbread should be comes from before I was five years old. Back then we lived in Knoxville, Tennessee. True southern cornbread has all (or mostly) cornmeal and minimal amounts of flour, no sugar, and the liquid is buttermilk.

But over at the Ada County Library I found the 1999 New England Cookbook by Brooke Dojny. On page 451 it had a recipe for Crusty Cornbread, Muffins, or Sticks which had 1-1/4 cups of flour and only 3/4 cup of cornmeal. I would call that corn-flavored bread, and consider it heresy.

The table shown above compares several versions of cornbread. (Click on it for a larger, clearer view). Two of them are from Bill Neal’s 1990 book, Biscuits, Spoonbread and Sweet Potato Pie. One for Northern Cornbread is from the 1997 Joy of Cooking, a fourth is from a web page for Bob’s Red Mill, and the heretical fifth is from the New England Cookbook.

What’s a corn stick? It’s the analog of a breadstick, made by pouring the batter into a cast iron pan with a series of cavities shaped like miniature ears of corn. See this web page on Understanding Corn Stick Pans.

Early experiences shape our views, and as I blogged about back in 2010, we decide Everybody does it this way, don’t they?

The image of cornbread came from Wikimedia Commons.

Review of the Timer function on the Toastmasters International Mobile App

 

When I rehearse my speeches I usually time myself either with the stopwatch function on my Casio watch or a digital lab timer. I finally got around to downloading the Android version of the free Toastmasters International Mobile App at Google Play and tried it out on my Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G phone, as shown above.

When I opened the App it asked me to enter a Username and Password. For rehearsal I chose to skip that, and to continue to Use as Guest.

The timer on the Mobile App is quite useful, and easy to navigate. The top menu line first asks you to Select Speech…      V. When I clicked on that line I was asked to Select Speech Type, and given choices, which are:

Intro Speech (4:00 – 6:00)

Prepared Speech (5:00 – 7:00)

Extended Speech (8:00 – 10:00)

Table Topics (1:00 – 2:00)

Evaluation (2:00 – 3:00)

Custom…

Open Time

The Custom Speech type starts set at times for a prepared speech (5:00 – 7:00) and then both minimum and maximum can be adjusted up or down in 0:15 increments.

Initially the two circular touchscreen control buttons are Start (red) and Reset (gray).  Pressing Start changes the left button to Pause (black). When Pause is pressed, that button changes to show Resume (Red). On my phone the Timer displays 0.4 in. (1 cm) high 4-digit white numbers for minutes and seconds. The background begins as dark gray, and eventually changes to the usual Toastmasters traffic light colors of green (shown above), yellow, or red. 

The Timer also continuously displays a horizontal progress bar with a vertical line between a dark color (left) and a lighter color (right). But, as shown above, there is insufficient contrast between the grays, some contrast between the greens, and easily seen contrast between the yellows.

I would suggest that (as shown above) that contrast should be increased so that a quick glance at the Timer display always would clearly reveal what percent of the maximum time has elapsed.   

I also wanted a way to tilt my phone so the timer could be seen easily during rehearsals. Placing it inside a generic 9.5 oz. clear plastic food storage container (like those made by Glad or Ziploc) solved that problem. 

Be your own Santa Claus – download free public speaking e-textbooks

 

If you are looking for inexpensive e-books so you can teach yourself and learn more about public speaking, you are in luck. There are three completely free ones you can download listed on the Journalism, Media Studies, and Communication web page for the Open Textbook Library at the Center for Open Education in the University of Minnesota.

They are:

Stand Up, Speak Out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking (Jason S. Wrench)

Exploring Public Speaking: The Free Dalton State College Public Speaking Textbook (Barbara B. Tucker and Kris Barton)

Business Communication for Success (Scott McLean)

You also can download chapters from another e-textbook at The Public Speaking Project, which I blogged about back on December 1, 2009 in a post titled The joy of finding a free and worthwhile e-Book: The ACA Open Knowledge Guide to Public Speaking.

The image of a paper Christmas decoration is from the Library of Congress.  

 

UPDATE April 21, 2022

The 2019 fourth edition of Exploring Public Speaking can be downloaded here.