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News that the Chicago Tribune will start a digital consultancy comes 15 years after the Trib launched its flagship website. Fifteen years is the span between the movies "King Kong vs. Godzilla" and "Star Wars," or the distance from "Star Wars" to "Jurassic Park." Enough time for a concept to grow from a curiosity to a killer.

Fifteen years ago, the few people working in new media would write a page of code, and then test to see if it would display in both Netscape Navigator 3 and Internet Explorer 3. Subtlety was our enemy, not our friend. Just two words held the keys to click-through. As in the headline here, they just don't hold the same magic.

These days most editors and sales people work simultaneously in print, broadcast, web and mobile publishing. Not that they're kings of all media, but reaching an audience takes any means necessary. All hands on the digital staff are essentially their in-house online consultants. Advertisers need the same help to figure out Twitter or Facebook, or niche websites, or any of the pages that follow "click here."

This economy could turn any of us with a job specialty, whatever the profession, into a consultant for hire. So there's much to gain in cribbing the techniques of successful sales consultants. They're not pitching a product or service as much as listening to a client. Before any money changes hands, the buyer will have realized there's an unmet need, and a need to take action.

The wrong choice has consequences; extra expense, lost customers, trouble with the boss. So a successful sale requires some level of trust. The best sales people level with their clients about what they can and cannot do, and customers feel that everyone's on the same team. This is the difference between beating your chest like King Kong and being a Jedi knight. If the strategy works, everything clicks.

Chi whiz: Why clutter holds sway

Feng shui was in the stars for me this weekend. I haven't quite aligned my home's chi with heaven and earth. But I have been clearing clutter, which for me can be like moving heaven and earth.

All the rage a few years ago, feng shui is a Chinese concept that places buildings in relation to the stars. Older Chinese expatriates seemed to see it as a silly pseudo-science, the way I think of astrology — why would the alignment of the planets have more effect on me at birth than the alignment of the doctor's hand slapping my butt?

But interior designers discovered feng shui and liked the idea of an ancient wisdom that gave everything a proper place in the world. Newly rebranded as feng shui consultants, the decorators would tell you the best place to put a door to concentrate the energy or "chi" in the room.

That does seem a lot like the astrologist who predicts the result when a Libra tries to get it on with a Pisces. (The Libra would say, "If it was good for you, it was good for me." The Pisces would say, "What was your name again?")

In feng shui, clutter is said to make you tired, cranky and unfocused. I do not need a feng shui master to tell me that. My wife would say that describes me perfectly.

There's no dispute that clutter is an irritating distraction. Every room of my house has some reminder of an uncompleted project: Extra furniture. A boxed ceiling fan. A running toilet. Gaps in the floorboards, holes in the wall.

It's dangerous watching cable TV, because the home transformations on HGTV or TLC or the Style channel invariably start with "before" scenes that look like the "after" in my household. Every show seems to inspire another trip to the Home Depot to start a newly unfinished project.

A friend suggested the path to serenity: Turn off the TV set.

Clutter can be a compulsion, but fortunately there's a help line for everything that ails you. When the voice on the phone said, "For help with compulsion press 1," I pressed the button. I pressed it again. And again.

Not that I'm a hoarder. The Chicago Tribune printed a harrowing story about a reclusive couple who collected a houseful of stuff, floor to ceiling. When neighbors complained they weren't taking out the trash, the city discovered they had been literally trapped by their trash and firefighters had to break into their home to free them.

I can't say I'm anything like that. Well, it did take awhile to find the Tribune clipping. And I'm from a long line of pack rats. You knew I was into a serious relationship not when I took a girl home to meet Mom and Dad but when I let her see the basement. That was always an adventure, finding our way back upstairs.

No, my issue is that everything stacked up at home is a reminder of more work. The only way to do them is to manufacture more hours in a day. This is how insomnia was invented, and although it has proved a boon to the Internet, insomnia does not get things done.

As managers we're used to breaking down tasks and taking at least the action that inches the ball another yard toward the goal post. With luck the goal posts don't move. What business has that's lacking in a home life is the way that profit can identify a losing proposition.

Unprofitable habits don't run out of money, they just wear their way into your life like dirt in a rug. At some point you have to go "NYPD Blue" with such a habit and start beating it out. That's usually when my habits lawyer up.

It's great to have friends if you have such habits. They stage an intervention of sorts: Their visit forces you to clean up. This weekend gave Brenda and I motivation to start getting organized before a Memorial Day cookout. We went through the house throwing out heirloom crossword puzzles and antique shopping lists. Most things easily sorted themselves into two piles: trash or compost.

Now the loose organic matter is pickling in a trash bin and surfaces are scrubbed with bleach. Chlorine at the YMCA turned my hair to straw, so I still find bleach a bit scary. A good splash of bleach will turns my wardrobe into rags, so I do treat it with the respect I would give a mob enforcer. But it seems to scare tea stains into submission.

Feng shui would hold that clutter traps energy as surely as it imprisons compulsive hoarders. Now I'm waiting for all the positive chi to move in, although with luck I won't have to wait longer for the shower.

Will we be able to keep this up? They say time is the best teacher, although it kills the students.

I'm told the ying and yang of energy are constantly shifting, which I guess means it could go either way. It's like when you first try yoga. A couple of bad sessions and you start whining to your instructor, "This is terrible. I get distracted, my back aches, I start nodding off. I can't stand it."

The teacher calmly answers, "It will pass."

Then just a week later everything clicks. You go to the teacher and say, "This is great! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive!"

The teacher calmly answers, "It will pass."

Friend me, I'm a musician

What does a YouTube phenomenon do for an encore? David Choi is getting nightclub gigs. Web-analyst friend Matt knew his opening act at the Beat Kitchen, Mia LeBlon, so we took in their all-ages show after work. ("Then I'll split," my younger friend told his office mates at the bar, "because I'm old.")

Choi gets enough YouTube love to parlay into a CD and (his Facebook bio says) commercial work. I thought that was all I needed to know about his song "You Tube (A Love Song)," but like John Mayer, Choi has a light, date-friendly repertoire. He's so earnest that Matt detected no irony in a song about an online crush. These lovers aren't ready for "I love you too."

Both LeBlon and Choi pepper their sets with references to Facebook fandom, which was strong enough to fill the room with Naperville teens (Choi patter: "Did you say Neighborville?"), Northwestern students and a few idly curious wage-earners. After Matt left for greasy appetizers at the front of the house, Choi sang "Happy Birthday" for anyone who might be there to celebrate, and took crowd shots on his cellphone. It was just goofy fun, like YouTube.

Fast ride on a slow election

I'm Grumpy, with the clip art to prove it. After voting in the Illinois primary I left town for a trip to Disney World, and the election followed me into Fantasyland.

How many people voted Feb. 2, and how many watched "Lost" that night? About 13 percent of TV sets were tuned to the "Lost" premiere, and 15 percent were were listening to contestants sing "God Bless the USA" on "American Idol." In the polling booth, at least I know I'm free. Yet two TV shows can capture more interest than voting. A scant 27 percent of registered Chicago voters were tuned in to the candidates, a record low for a non-presidential primary. Statewide totals were reportedly even lower.

Two weeks later, the election is still not quite locked up. The top Republican candidate for governor, Bill Brady, had only a few hundred votes to spare and the results are not final. Not many people know Brady, a state senator from Bloomington. And the lieutenant governor's race had enough mystery to rival Oceanic Flight 815: First we voted, then we learned about the candidates.

Today the Democrats are pulling Scott Lee Cohen off the ticket. He ran a typical campaign theme: Successful entrepreneur wants the state to benefit from his business acumen. Then we learned that he has had trouble keeping his business going, particularly the part about paying taxes. He also has an ex-wife who filed a protection order against him, and a girlfriend who filed a battery charge. The Republican nominee, Jason Plummer, had the same pitch with few troubles and few experiences. Internships were still on my resume too when I was 27. But I was working in an industrial park in Elk Grove Village, not running for high office.

None of this Illinois news made it to Florida. National media were building up a speech by a former governor, Sarah Palin, who enthralled Tea Party conventioneers in Nashville by the hundreds. Tomorrow the Emergency Nurses Association will draw twice the crowd to a leadership conference in Chicago, without a hint of hype. But saving lives doesn't have the allure of saving on taxes.

When it came to electing an actual governor, we did not stream to the polls -- at 7:30 a.m. I was the third voter in my precinct. But it's not like the candidates did much to draw them out. Every hopeful for governor had a great plan for shoring up the state finances, but none had a great plan to get the plan through the Legislature. The Democratic race for governor seemed to be about the blame for misdeeds at Burr Oak Cemetery -- not a major issue for anyone in government other than the state prosecutor, who was running unopposed for another term. Polls say she would have beat all comers for governor.

Contests lower on the ticket obviously didn't demand much attention. The lieutenant governor's seat is vacant now, and there wasn't a lot there for the last one to do. For his $135,000 salary at least Pat Quinn did newsrooms the favor of holding press conferences on slow news days. Given the odds that an Illinois governor will end up in the hoosegow, maybe we should be watching the lieutenant governor more closely. As governor, Pat Quinn is still getting in front of cameras on Sunday mornings. Is that what voters reward in a politician?

If I want a show, I'll go to Disney World. It's easy to enjoy the landscape and its well manicured ponds, and not think about how shallow they are. Just about everything at Disney is gloss. The Italian exhibit at Epcot is not as imposing as Doge's Palace, but well scrubbed. Disney has adorable city streets, but they're Hollywood Studios backlots where no one lives. Thrill rides are packaged as research at the Dinosaur Institute or the Yeti Museum. Abominable Snowman: Fact or Fiction? You're at an amusement park. It's all fiction. Yet the boy ahead of me at Expedition Everest was excited at the prospect of actually seeing a yeti! Tourists make quick work of the mountain, no sherpa required. At Disney World, the fantasy is enough.

Frankly I was glad to be on the plane home to a real-world destination but was confronted by more fantasy. In the Sky Mall catalog Hammacher Schlemmer offered a faux security camera -- a battery-powered canister that does nothing more than swivel back and forth. A faux security camera is great if you're looking for faux security. I'd feel more comfortable if police were involved. But security cameras are costly, and cops are costlier still.

Government seems more willing these days to settle for the Disney version. Airport security is on the alert for terrorists, yet bombers slip past the hair-gel inspectors. Police departments vow to keep cops on the streets, but they have to think twice about arresting someone because it will mean a crosstown trip to the nearest lockup. And schools claim to leave no child behind. So why is it that city parents pull every string they can find to avoid enrolling their kids in a local school?

A better system couldn't help but cost more. But somehow we expect every politician to lower our taxes. We'd rather think every complex problem has a simple answer, and all we need are politicians who can run government like a business. Maybe there's some truth to that. Disney runs a collection of tidy villages in Florida. But getting into the park is $80 a day. Having been presented the bill at Disney, I cannot share the tea partiers' anger about their tax bills. Call me Grumpy, but good government is complicated. Getting it will mean all of us paying more attention. Anyone who says otherwise is just Goofy.