Garfield the cat famously said "I hate Mondays." The A's started their season off on the wrong foot Monday with a 15-2 pasting at the hands of the perennial superpower New York Yankees. It seemed all was lost, as the team's vaunted starting pitching and hopeful offense couldn't compete with the Bronx superstars. But as the World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates showed in 1960, it's not how many total runs you may score in a series, but when those runs are scored. A one-run victory is just as useful in the long run as an embarrassing blowout. Monday's debacle was followed up by a thrilling 4-3 victory Tuesday night, which saw Marco Scutaro come through in the clutch with a 9th-inning tie-breaking hit to close out the game before the rains came, and Wednesday's less close contest, a 9-4 victory for the home team. All in all, while the A's were outscored by a tally of 22-15 in the series, the final standings read as Oakland 2, New York 1, much more than we could have expected after being thoroughly maligned on national television to kick off the 2006 campaign.

Now, only two-plus days after thinking we were nearing Armageddon, the spirits are much happier in the Athletics Nation. For those of us who live and die by our team, we have not only been given life support, but have an air exuberance - an eagerness to vanquish our next foe, for we are tied for the division lead, and feel we've seen the best the league has to offer. On to more successes! 3 down, 159 to go.

Listening to ''Zocalo'', by DJ Armin van Buuren & Gabriel & Dresden (Play Count: 8)

It's a human tendency to hate that which is different - those who act a certain way, prefer one sports team over your personal favorite, vote for political parties contrary to your preference, or purchase products that you don't care for. In business, the highly competitive pressures to take your share of the market can lead to generalizations on who the competition is, what they stand for, what they represent, and how anybody who would choose to select or think about buying their products is either a fool, was tricked, or has signed an exclusive deal with the prince of darkness.

But, just as with Microsoft, as I mentioned in an earlier article, if you drill down through the global organization, you can find that your competition - the enemy - is comprised of individual human beings with similar desires to yours - to be happy, to be successful, and in most cases, to promote a product that delivers benefits to customers. While at the office, I can give you a long list of reasons as to why our product is better than the competition, and an extensive reference list for people who have chosen our route to solve their needs, I understand the human element, and through the years of going trade show to trade show, I have built up relationships with individuals who sell on the other side of the aisle - people whose products may differ greatly, but target similar markets, sometimes the same companies or opportunities. I recognize the faces, the mannerisms and the stories, and they often know people I know, or we may have shared experiences from different perspectives.

This week it was more evident than ever. Not only did I get the chance to talk to the CTO of one competitor and the Sales VP of another, but I was reunited with former colleagues of mine who in some cases I hadn't seen since 2002 or 2003, who were now working with the same gusto they once gave our business, but with new logos on their company-issued attire. In some cases, they've prospered at their new companies when they had struggled with us, and in others, they used success at our company to springboard to the next opportunity. This doesn't make them bad people, and it doesn't mean their technology is "evil". It's just different. These are people too - some driven by the almighty dollar, others for a new challenge or a new title, but still pushing forward nonetheless, and were I to see them as hell-bent demons, nobody would benefit.

In industries such as ours, the smallness of the market and the number of companies participating means you will most certainly see people again - as colleagues, competition or partners. To blow people off, and show your bad side in the name of competition cannot win long-lasting happiness and success. It's more than trading business cards and 10 minutes of your time - instead its about investing in the future. And if you just so happen to find out a tidbit that helps you compete today, go fight and win.

Listening to ''No One's Driving'', by Dave Clarke (Play Count: 6)

Many in the media were breathlessly awaiting any kind of announcement from Apple on the company's 30th anniversary this last April 1st, and when that date came and went without a peep from Cupertino, some were highly disappointed - though the only people not talking up any news were those who would issue it themselves. Earlier this morning, Apple broke their silence with a product called Boot Camp which enables Intel Macs to boot into Windows XP or Mac OS X with a simple restart.

While this isn't the virtual OS layer many were hoping for, which may be soon to follow, the option to boot Mac OS X or Windows XP on a single Apple computer is very intriguing, and dramatically expands the market for the company. Now, when it comes to the purveyors of limitations, it's Dell, HP and others who come to mind, who limit their customers to Redmond-approved environments only, while Apple gives you both. Now, people like me don't have to carry two laptops through airport x-ray machines on business trips, and corporations can feel better about providing those who prefer Macintosh with Apple products - knowing they can still run any Windows-only software that may be needed.

One side benefit of the announcement was that Apple stock (AAPL) jumped nearly 10 percent on the news, after weeks of slow descent. That helped my portfolio immensely, so I'm pleased. In fact, today's profit from Apple alone is enough to get a new iMac or Mac Mini with Intel inside. Dare me to give it a shot? I personally think I'll wait for the second revision of the MacBook Pro, Windows or not.

Listening to ''heavenly'', by Mystre and Dyloot (Play Count: 4)

One of the more annoying trends I've seen as the mainstream and tech media try to embrace blogging is that everything is being rebranded as blogs, even if the content and frequency isn't changing. To me, main features of a true blog are that it's organized in chronological order (newest on top in almost all cases), is updated regularly, provides readers the ability to comment and have their comments displayed for two-way discourse, and features a time stamp. Yet, all over the place, you can see people say they are blogging, when in fact all they are doing is providing small articles.

In fact, many in the media have been asked to blog from their editors, and those who don't see benefits from a new medium cling to the old, in some cases issuing the minimum of updates to "check that box off" and keep their main attention on their mainstream articles. And as corporations increasingly move toward blogging, there is a very serious tug of war between those who want to spread and share the message and those who want to control the message. While some companies, like Sun, have offered employees open opportunity to blog on anything they wish, others like Apple and even Google (who owns Blogger - funny how that works) are very strict about their blogging policy. Do it at Apple and you are incinerated, while at Google, stories of new hires blogging have led to stories of new hires being fired. Only approved articles in a semi-regular fashion are posted to Google's blog sites, and even those posts do not allow comments. Cute. Isn't it odd that the owner of Blogger doesn't allow comments? What are they afraid of? Negativity? Too many comments? Look at Slashdot - somehow they can handle it.

Listening to ''Outside the Club, Zürich (Prelude)'', by D:Fuse (Play Count: 4)