Thursday, January 15, 2004
I'm not a big fan of spam (the meat product or the email kind), but even I have to appreciate the lengths advertisers are going to to hawk their products online.
First they started sending spammy emails from normal-sounding names - names that unnervingly looked like my friends names. Then there were the creative email titles - "Don't be a lonely fatty at home" (which is supposed to make me say what... "Ooh - you're right - I don't want to be a lonely fatty at home... maybe they can help!") and "Ever seen plaster that can grow your penis?" (nope... and no thank you).
But now, in an effort to avoid spam filters or something, they've taken to including complete nonsense words both in their titles and their text. This, I believe, is my favorite tactic ever. First of all, it's kind of like a game trying to find the actual ad buried inside of all the nonsense words. Take a look at this ad and see if you can figure out what you're supposed to do:
deducted obelisk
attackers cabling
Now you can order your medications online and
have them delivered to your doorstep overnight.
Why leave your house? All the known m.e.d.s
you need at the touch of your figertips at the
lowest cost you will ever see.
Louis landers
Sumter discourse
linguist visitation
Griswold unsure
Link yourself below to see for yourself!
shrewdness http://www.webrxcentral.com subculture
It's like they ran out of copywriters and enlisted the help of some small Russian child who wasn't doing anything at the moment.
But most of all, I think I like these new ads for their artistic value. When you get an email in your in-box with the title: "crucial pillage fricative coat" (which I did yesterday), your mind immediately wanders into Dr. Seuss-land as you try to picture exactly what color a crucial pillage fricative coat might be. I think scarlet, but that's just me.
Not sure what 'fricative' means?
(0) comments
First they started sending spammy emails from normal-sounding names - names that unnervingly looked like my friends names. Then there were the creative email titles - "Don't be a lonely fatty at home" (which is supposed to make me say what... "Ooh - you're right - I don't want to be a lonely fatty at home... maybe they can help!") and "Ever seen plaster that can grow your penis?" (nope... and no thank you).
But now, in an effort to avoid spam filters or something, they've taken to including complete nonsense words both in their titles and their text. This, I believe, is my favorite tactic ever. First of all, it's kind of like a game trying to find the actual ad buried inside of all the nonsense words. Take a look at this ad and see if you can figure out what you're supposed to do:
deducted obelisk
attackers cabling
Now you can order your medications online and
have them delivered to your doorstep overnight.
Why leave your house? All the known m.e.d.s
you need at the touch of your figertips at the
lowest cost you will ever see.
Louis landers
Sumter discourse
linguist visitation
Griswold unsure
Link yourself below to see for yourself!
shrewdness http://www.webrxcentral.com subculture
It's like they ran out of copywriters and enlisted the help of some small Russian child who wasn't doing anything at the moment.
But most of all, I think I like these new ads for their artistic value. When you get an email in your in-box with the title: "crucial pillage fricative coat" (which I did yesterday), your mind immediately wanders into Dr. Seuss-land as you try to picture exactly what color a crucial pillage fricative coat might be. I think scarlet, but that's just me.
Not sure what 'fricative' means?
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
A quick product review for you:
Got clogged drains? I mean really clogged drains... the kind that just laugh when you pour bottle after expensive bottle of Liquid Plumr down them? Go out immediately and buy some Drano Gel. I don't know what they put in this stuff (maybe it's just that it's a gel and actually sticks around long enough to do some damage to the sludge down there), but it works and I love it.
Where have you been all my life...
(0) comments
Got clogged drains? I mean really clogged drains... the kind that just laugh when you pour bottle after expensive bottle of Liquid Plumr down them? Go out immediately and buy some Drano Gel. I don't know what they put in this stuff (maybe it's just that it's a gel and actually sticks around long enough to do some damage to the sludge down there), but it works and I love it.
Where have you been all my life...
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
With the 2004 presidential election looming, I decided to put together a quick survey about female voter habits and send it out to about 45 girls / women. It's not a scientific study by any means, but I thought I might find something interesting in the results that would inspire an article.
So far, 23 people have responded - all from different professions, educational backgrounds and ages. Aside from realizing that people in the entertainment industry all vote alike (yes, Ann, there is a liberal media... and they don't like you either), I've only really looked at one element of the survey... who these women would vote for if the election was held today.
So here's the breakdown of the Shellen Poll to date:
Don't Know: 9 votes
Dean: 8 votes
Clark: 4 votes
Gephardt: 1 vote
Bush: 1 vote
Yes, though the poll went out to people in industries other than entertainment whom I know are Republicans, only one woman said she'd vote for Bush. And that woman is also the only one who didn't complete college.
Again, I'm not saying this is scientifically accurate. I'm just saying it's something to think about.
Want to make your own cool, free survey?
(0) comments
So far, 23 people have responded - all from different professions, educational backgrounds and ages. Aside from realizing that people in the entertainment industry all vote alike (yes, Ann, there is a liberal media... and they don't like you either), I've only really looked at one element of the survey... who these women would vote for if the election was held today.
So here's the breakdown of the Shellen Poll to date:
Don't Know: 9 votes
Dean: 8 votes
Clark: 4 votes
Gephardt: 1 vote
Bush: 1 vote
Yes, though the poll went out to people in industries other than entertainment whom I know are Republicans, only one woman said she'd vote for Bush. And that woman is also the only one who didn't complete college.
Again, I'm not saying this is scientifically accurate. I'm just saying it's something to think about.
Want to make your own cool, free survey?
Monday, January 12, 2004
As I sit here in January in 72-degree I-could-eat-outside-in-shorts weather in Southern California, I'm reminded of an article I read just this last summer while I was in Montana. It was unseasonably hot in Missoula while I was there... in the 100s for what seemed like weeks... and the editors of the local paper, The Missoulian, felt sort of a kinship with the tens of thousands of people dying of heat in western Europe. So they reported on this freak heat wave with the kind of passionate coverage usually reserved for fly fishing tips or forest service bulletins.
One particularly hot day, I picked up the paper to read an article about the heatwave and happened to catch an interesting, albeit casually-reported quote buried deep in the center of the piece. It said that experts were attributing the recent heat wave to a "shift in the earth's meteorological equator." If you don't speak meteorology, let me translate: A shift in the earth's meteorological equator means that weather that used to belong to Africa will now belong to Europe, and vice versa.
I checked online and found that, indeed, this assessment was pretty universal and most of the earth's experts were predicting that throughout the next few decades, summers in Europe will continue to become more and more blazingly hot, while Africa will suffer surprise cold snaps in its winter.
Interesting, right? I'm just wondering one thing: Am I the only person who's scared shitless by this quote?
First of all, there are the small things. Hot tea, someday, will become all but useless in England, depriving Britons everywhere of the only thing that actually stimulated any sort of communication between them. Plus, the formerly pasty Brits will no longer have to fly to LA for a good, warm tan, depriving us of their tourist dollars. And how about Africa? You know that song "Do They Know It's Christmas" where they talk about African residents not knowing it's Christmas because it's not snowing? Gone... a relic of a past where Africa was not faced with howling winter winds and snow shovels. I can just picture the Peace Corps calling all Montanans to "come and teach your African brothers and sisters how to keep their sidewalks free of snow."
But it's really the bigger issue that worries me most. A shift in the meteorological equator is like Superman talk. Like Lex Luther succeeded in doing something horrible to increase the property value of his land in upper Africa. This is the stuff of serious sci fi... something that indicates the things we previously considered to be facts, are, in fact, not so. Africa may someday be cold in the winter, and England's green hills may someday dry into crispy, arid fields.
Of course, there's something we can all do about it. Scientists everywhere are issuing a collective "I told you so" to the world's policy makers about ozone-depleting chemicals and pollution. We can and should stand up and fight for our world. And I will. But first, I need some tea.
"Oh God, We're All Going To Die"
(0) comments
One particularly hot day, I picked up the paper to read an article about the heatwave and happened to catch an interesting, albeit casually-reported quote buried deep in the center of the piece. It said that experts were attributing the recent heat wave to a "shift in the earth's meteorological equator." If you don't speak meteorology, let me translate: A shift in the earth's meteorological equator means that weather that used to belong to Africa will now belong to Europe, and vice versa.
I checked online and found that, indeed, this assessment was pretty universal and most of the earth's experts were predicting that throughout the next few decades, summers in Europe will continue to become more and more blazingly hot, while Africa will suffer surprise cold snaps in its winter.
Interesting, right? I'm just wondering one thing: Am I the only person who's scared shitless by this quote?
First of all, there are the small things. Hot tea, someday, will become all but useless in England, depriving Britons everywhere of the only thing that actually stimulated any sort of communication between them. Plus, the formerly pasty Brits will no longer have to fly to LA for a good, warm tan, depriving us of their tourist dollars. And how about Africa? You know that song "Do They Know It's Christmas" where they talk about African residents not knowing it's Christmas because it's not snowing? Gone... a relic of a past where Africa was not faced with howling winter winds and snow shovels. I can just picture the Peace Corps calling all Montanans to "come and teach your African brothers and sisters how to keep their sidewalks free of snow."
But it's really the bigger issue that worries me most. A shift in the meteorological equator is like Superman talk. Like Lex Luther succeeded in doing something horrible to increase the property value of his land in upper Africa. This is the stuff of serious sci fi... something that indicates the things we previously considered to be facts, are, in fact, not so. Africa may someday be cold in the winter, and England's green hills may someday dry into crispy, arid fields.
Of course, there's something we can all do about it. Scientists everywhere are issuing a collective "I told you so" to the world's policy makers about ozone-depleting chemicals and pollution. We can and should stand up and fight for our world. And I will. But first, I need some tea.
"Oh God, We're All Going To Die"
