There it was, right there on the screen. You had to see it to believe it. They did it! They did it! They pulled it off. No one had ever done THAT before.

At halftime, the score sits at 10-6, the Indianapolis Colts leading the New Orleans Saints. In the locker room, someone with all the guts he needed to make something awesome happen told his idea to someone else and they agreed, and the plan was spun. It was the oldest trick in the book in action. You know, the infamous “tapping on a person’s left shoulder, when you’re standing on their right.” Who made that call? Who made that call? Who said, “We should kick the ball to ourselves”?

Playbook in hand, special teams took the field, and the New Orleans Saints did what no team had ever done. They kicked the ball to themselves at the START of the half. No one does that. Onside kicks are used when a team is under extreme duress—when there is almost no time left and it is your only choice. And since it is obviously your only option, the other team knows to line up their defense in anticipation of it.

But not that day. Not during Superbowl XLIV. They New Orleans Saints did an onside kick before they HAD to, so no one expected it, and that is why it worked! The oldest trick in the book. The surprise was beautiful. No team had ever done that before during The Super Bowl because no team ever had the guts to take that risk—until now! Now sports history is forever changed because the storybook, fairytale, underestimated, Kim-Kardashian-datin’ New Orleans Saints took that risk and it worked. They did an onside kick to start the second half and it worked. IT WORKED!!!!!!

Whatever happened after that didn’t matter because when you take that kind of risk—BELIEVING it can happen—then the universe conspires to help you achieve it. The ending was written when the risk paid off. No one ever gets there the same way, and the saints did it their way: with a gutsy, brilliant surprise.

I love this game. From here on out it will never be the same. And perhaps, after this lesson in mettle, neither will I.

Now that’s entertainment.

And the beat goes on.

The Saints Nailed It

Meanwhile, as the world turns, so does the Factory and it’s cast of characters. X is monitoring world events; The Consigliere continues to build his law firm specializing in the law of attraction; Pinky Megiston is beautiful; and Anything Anywhere! seeks more avenues through which he can add value.

Apart from all that, sovereign risk spreads are igniting. The dollar is catching a flight to safety bid and stocks are crushing lower–the S&P 500 is off about 2.5% as I write. Gold and silver have been pummeled most severely, off 4% and 5.5% respectively.

Sovereign risk spreads have risen dramatically this week, led by the European majors. Holders of sovereign debt—in particular Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain—are running for cover. Not surprisingly, politicians will blame these events on speculators. However, a closer look at the money flows reveals true fear: real money is fleeing sovereign debt (selling government bonds) as opposed to speculators driving risk higher by buying credit default swaps (insurance). Nations with the largest deficits and the most in need of short term financing are being sold the hardest.

Dubai has continued to see risk premiums rise, as it scrambles unsuccessfully to sell off some of it’s holdings. Like a skydiver free-falling through the air, Dubai is reaching for it’s reserve chute. The velocity is building to the perilous downside. Hope is not a viable strategy here and now; but other than bluff, it may be all they have.

The crash of 2009 was not foiled—it was postponed.

We are sitting on the precipice of something special. An event where fortunes will be made and lost. Great art will be inspired, and an ageless tale will be re-told.

And the beat goes on.

The other day I was doing some R&D on my comedy. I crowdsourced the enterprise solution to a couple friends: one man and one woman. During the 360 degree review process, we ended up in a virtual loop. We danced our way out of the loop by settling the score on the dance floor. After that, we laughed about the fact that we were able to virtualize our code base out of the loop with our modular solution–the dance floor. Then, I mentioned that as great as this all sounds, the solution to the virtual loop was an offline solution. While we were dancing, none of us were online. To further our use of the internet, we need to motivate each other toward online solutions–not off. At this point everyone was confused and I started to not care so I gave the Web 2.0 grad students a break and told them the following:

Just because the dance floor solution seems offline, it may not be after all.

“How do you figure,” asked one of them.

Because while they were dancing they may have been offline but they were being videotaped. All we have to do to take the solution online is to produce the video.

YouTube is one solution, but for extra credit send some thoughts to my office on the following:

Which virtual reality would you use for an optimized monetization scheme?

Submit your thoughts to me telepathically after grading yourself. If you feel that I made you laugh, tell some social media about my T-shirts and help me monetize my alter egos.