Thanks to a friend of mine, I have discovered the most gut-bustingly funny set of comments on a blog I have ever read.

It all started with a Paula Deen recipe for English peas.  Paula’s mind blowingly complicated recipe made me long for the simplicity of Pythagorean’s theorem.  It is as follows:

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
• 2 cans (14 1/2-ounces) English peas, drained

Directions

Melt the butter in small pot and add the peas. Cook over medium heat until peas are warm.

That’s it.

As I write this post, there are more than 220 comments, many of which (most all, in fact) mock this recipe.  The comments are HILARIOUS and include some of those that I have posted below.

Quick note to the Food Network:  you might want to have someone monitor the comments on your Web site;  this has been a delicious opportunity to make fun of one Paula Deen.

Here are some of my favorite comments:

“Oh c’mon!! I’m so tired of these recipes that aren’t specific. Do I use salted or unsalted butter? How “small” is a small pot? Do I have to cover the pot or can I leave it uncovered? Can somebody who has made this recipe help me out? Also, I have checked every store around and I can’t find drained English Peas. All of them come with liquid!!!!

“I’ve always flirted with the idea of making canned peas, but assumed it would be too complicated. Thanks for de-mystifying it.

“I absolutely loved this! My only suggestion would be to puree the mixture so that it doesn’t clog your feeding tube. I really appreciate these recipes that are geared to those of us who no longer have the use of our tastebuds.

“The recipe above is going to cause severe tension to the USA & UK special relationship.  Here is the ‘recipe’ for cooking peas as the English do in the 21st century.
Take one bag of frozen peas, cut open the corner of the bag. No idea what the health and safety regs on this procedure are in USA – we just go with whatever lies to hand that might be sort of sharp, but then we do have the NHS to stitch us up for free if it all goes wrong. Add peas to boiling water in a pan.

Add a little salt if you really must, but we all know what salt does to BP, that’s blood pressure, not the guys who messed up a bit of your coastline. Properly cooked British peas really don’t need salt – trust me on this one.

As soon as the water comes back to the boil, proper boil mind you, none of that minor splopping at the edge, remove from the heat and drain using a colander.
Serve and eat.”

“This recipe was fantastic! I am a house cat, and after making this recipe I was able to speak english for roughly 30 seconds! I can’t wait to try this wimeow meow meow meow meow meow.

“Paula, thank you so much for the recipe. We just moved into our new double-wide mobile home, and I wanted to surprise my boyfriend and our five children with a special entree and side dish to celebrate. This was perfect. Not too hard to make. Just Wish I had time to make the side dish.

“This was unacceptably time consuming. Sticking holes in each of the peas and draining them just takes way too much time. Perhaps using a centrifuge might be a better solution.”

More hilarious comments here.

Mark

Image:  Delish.com

This is a repost of an article in Mark Drapeau’ “Sector Public blog.

I created my latest contribution to For Immediate Release using AudioBoo.  Fun experiment.

It’s below – about Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 – and even includes a British to American translation.

Mark

The views in this post are mine and mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chairman of the SEC, its Commissioners or my colleagues.  I am not a lawyer and do not offer legal advice.

As you may have guessed from my uber-disclosure above, I am the Director of New Media for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  We have three pillars at the SEC, one could argue the most important of which is to protect investors.  This is why we hold most publicly traded companies to a very high standard, regulating what they can say, when they can say it and how.

This is one of the reasons that I closely followed Frank Eliason’s departure from Comcast and subsequent landing at Citi.  Frank is truly one of the pioneers of using social media in general and Twitter in particular – as a platform for customer service.  “Comcast Cares” was arguably one of the best uses of social media to help resolve customer service issues.  I got to meet Frank at BlogWorld Expo last year and I found him to be down to earth and likable as well.

Technically Philly noted of Frank:

He was the start of a social media craze from Comcast, chasing down and responding to online complaints from customers. In the history book of social media, Eliason, who popularized Twitter handle @ComcastCares, will be among the forefathers of the movement.

True ‘dat.

Throughout a long and checkered career, every new job I have gotten has been based largely upon the experiences and successes from prior jobs.  This is true for almost everyone and, I presume, the same for Frank as well.  And since he was so successful at Comcast, I cannot help but wonder which of the social media tools and tactics he can take with him to Citi.

Tech Philly Frank describes what he will be doing at Citi:

Together with my Citi team, we can … further build relationships with our customers. Since my days at Vanguard Investments, I have always enjoyed the industry, and with the transformation that has been taking place, now seems to be a great time to return.

Here’s where the social media rubber hits the financial regulation road.

As I stated, the SEC issues strict guidance on what publicly traded companies say, what they can say and when they say it.  Much of this is encapsulated in something called “Regulation FD” – the “FD” being “fair disclosure.”  Feel free to read the SEC explanation of Reg FD, but in plain English, this means that the SEC mandates that all publicly traded companies must disclose material information to all investors at the same time.  Hence, “fair disclosure.”

FINRA , the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc., also has a say in financial disclosure (they regulate  individuals and entities as well) and they issued some pretty detailed requirements in January 2010.  If you’re interested, read their notice, but they list social media platforms – one by one – and their requirements.  Really good, detailed stuff.

Since Frank is beginning anew at Citi, I can’t help but wonder which strategies and tactics will be replicable at his new job.  As I note above, communication in the financial services industry is, quite “frankly,” more strict and controlled than it is in the non-regulated industry.   Oftentimes, there is a lot more legal approval that has to go through internal compliance offers to ensure that companies are, well, in compliance with FINRA and/or SEC regulations.   Strict stuff.

None of this is to say that Frank will be anything less than successful – what he has been in prior stops in his career – but I wonder how much more challenging it will be to deploy a wide array of social media tools and tactics to inform and educate investors and other market participants.

Good luck, Frank, but I doubt if you will need it.

Mark

P.S. – Have I mentioned that these words are mine and mine alone?

Image credit:  Citi.

Apple issued a big “screw you” to detractors yesterday when they announced their quarterly profit results.  The cold, hard facts are below, but in recent weeks, the media has issued shrill warnings that Apple had lost its touch and become “arrogant.”  Apple had lost its way.  Apple was producing crappy products.  Antennagate.

Working in the financial sector, I know that the proof is always in the earnings pudding – and in Wall Street’s take on it.  Here’s what Apple announced, according to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

• Quarterly profit surged 78%, as the company booked strong initial sales of its iPad tablet computer and the latest version of its smartphone, the iPhone 4.
• Apple’s revenue in the quarter ended June 26 rose 61% to $15.7 billion. SIXTY ONE PERCENT.
• Apple is selling iPads and iPhones “as fast as we can make them” and “working around the clock to try to get supply and demand in balance.”
• Shares of Apple rose 2.5% in after-hours trading. The stock closed Tuesday at $251.89 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
• Apple sold 3.5 million computers, up 33% from a year ago.
• Apple said it sold 3.3 million iPads since the tablet went on sale, generating revenue of $2.16 billion. The company said the average sales price for its iPad was $640, suggesting many customers opted for higher-priced models with cellular-data service.
• Research company iSuppli earlier raised its estimate for iPad sales in 2010 to 12.9 million from 7.1 million, saying the only limitation was production capacity, not demand.
• While analysts were also concerned that consumers might hold off buying iPhones in the quarter until the iPhone 4 was released, Apple sold 8.4 million iPhones during the period, up 61% from a year ago.
• Apple posted a fiscal third-quarter profit of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 a share, compared with $1.83 billion, or $2.01 a share a year earlier.

I  could go on and on, but let’s first address the iPhone 4.0 issue.  According to Jobs’ press conference, demand has not abated since “Antennagate.”  People still want the phone.  BUT – if iPhone sales fell, other sectors are still strong.  iPads are selling as fast as Apple can make them and Macs sales are up by a third.  Even if they did not sell a single iPhone 4.0, they would have generated a profit.

I held my tongue in recent weeks because I wanted to see what the earnings and Wall Street said.

The verdict for Apple?

Screw you, Antennagate.  We’re as strong as ever.

Mark

P.S. – Since this post touches on the financial sector, I’ll let you know that the thoughts expressed in this post are mine and mine alone and do not reflect those of the Chairman, Commissioners or my colleagues at the Securities and Exchange Commission.  So there.