Am I missing something?

We have come full circle. Where once men were "all powerful" and women were only "meant to be seen not heard", times have changed. I'm all for woman's rights but when the knee-jerk reaction is to shift the balance too far the other way, I am compelled to get up on my soap box and talk about men's rights.  For instance, I have noticed an interesting trend to degrade men in ads nowadays. Take this ad, for example:

It starts with a woman breaking up with a guy by stating that he is boring (... boring ... boring). Post break-up, he proves that he isn't by buying tickets to look at pictures in a museum (which could still be viewed as boring by some), getting spoon-fed by a female cooking instructor (like a baby) and then going to an Alicia Keys concert. Well, at least he's finally out of the closet. If Citibank was aiming to get people excited about their private pass, I'm pretty sure that they failed ... at least for men. Despite the protagonist of this ad being a guy, I would say the target audience for these private passes is women not men. 

I would summarise the moral of this ad as teaching men that the only way to not be boring is to buy stuff, which seems to go against all sense of logic (unless you have a bottomless well of money) but, if you're in the interest of people amassing large sums of personal debt, it makes sense. He still doesn't get his lady friend back but, hey, at least "he's shown her" that he's not boring anymore ... to himself. Assuming he spent outside of his means, like most people, he'll be on cup-a-noodles while he pays off that debt ... but only if he has any intelligence remaining. And then the cycle continues.

 Well played, Citibank.

Internet: meet my novel

It is so easy to get your novel into the hungry hands of blog reviewers. They are always so receptive to the rabid requests of the random indie / self-published / e-book-only authors that want their next 'masterpiece' reviewed.

The review request process works more like an interview or marketing or even an application to a publisher. These blog sites are professional, much to my dismay. I am also competing against 'legitimate' novels for the reviewers' time, which makes the problem of getting my novel into their hands a little harder. Although, I think if I ran a book review blog I would do the same. If I could read the next JK Rowling or the next Joe Blow, I know which one I would choose.

It seems obvious now.

How to market your <item>

This video details how to market your indie game, but could quite-as-easily be related to any other product that you wish to put your mind towards. The points that he raise are quite interesting and certainly detail the do's and dont's of how to drum up business for your product in question.

One of the interesting points is that he personally believes that buzz has little worth, because interest from buzz is not what a developer wants; it's sales. He believes that once you have a great working product is when you need to get the word out. If you get glowing reviews, then you would want the person who reads that to have the chance to purchase it, rather than sit on their hands waiting in anticipation for the product to finally be released. Wouldn't you?

Obvious statement is obvious.

It seems that the large majority of development houses still fall into the category of hyping something that has yet to be released. Sometimes hype breaks what would be a reasonable game just because the anticipation exceeds what the game can actually deliver. Games like Fable, Spore, Dead Island, Duke Nukem Forever, for instance. None of them benefitted from the hyperbole given to their demo's and spruiking from their lead douches designers.

In the end, a good game will stand on its merits. It will naturally be revered because it is actually a good game, rather than defined by how much buzz was generated pre-launch.

My dysfunctional hero

Mr Doug Stanhope: In my most coherent, eloquent, salient, antagonist-minded moment, I'd hope to be a tenth as capable as you.

He's a stand-up comedian, chronic drinker, drug user and a staunch believer in excess.  Or, as he calls it, excess in moderation.  He's also hilarious.

I find his mind amazing to follow.  He takes Zoloft and sleeping pills so he can sleep without his thoughts keeping him awake.  Sure, he's sensational (if you watch some of his stuff), but he is somehow able to twist this sensationalism in such a way that you can't help understanding his point.  He's like a current-day bene gesserit, able to use 'the voice' to sway your mind.

Even though the two of us don't appear very similar on the outside, I think we're almost the same.  His views are mine, his perspective is mine, his brain is mine.  The way we choose to handle the infliction caused by our thoughts is different, but the symptoms are the same.

Off topic ever so slightly:

Speaking of symptoms, watching TV in America is a depressing activity. I've seen this ad for a drug for depression called 'abilify' which, apart from hurting my brain at the double-speak-esque name, hurts my head in other ways.  This is an anti-depressant supplement. So if you are still depressed with your current anti-depressants, here's something that'll take you 'to eleven'.  But it's a small price to pay, as long as the symptoms are treated. Does anyone else see a problem with that previous sentence?


"Yeah you're fine - you got no symptoms!  You're great!  Now just repeat this treatment till you got no symptoms of life."


I'd like to think we're beyond the point of treating symptoms and actually looking at the cause, or is that being far too presumptuous? It then goes onto say that in some cases it can increase the chances of suicide, stroke, coma or death... I'm sorry.  Is this meant to help or just get you further along the path to your final demise?

Anyway, rant over - back to Doug.

I have a feeling that, despite his apparent excesses, he'll be another Keith Richards.  Where he, despite all probability, remains alive far beyond what should be clinically possible.  I think, ironically, he lives to spite himself.  It's a wonderful contradiction.

Here's a list of his 'cleaner' material:

Doug Stanhope on Media-generated Celebrity
Doug Stanhope on Fear in the US News Media
Doug Stanhope on Late Night US TV
Doug Stanhope on Saving the Planet

Anyway, Doug's an amazing comedian and he deserves at least a few minutes of your time.

Taking a slug to the slogan

American company slogans.

You either love them or hate them. I generally hate them, but 300 million Americans can't all be wrong.There was a time when slogans were intelligent; made by intelligent companies with a view to promote intelligent thoughts or positive views towards their product or service.

GOOD

'Fly the friendly skies'

Brilliant, but United Airlines went bust so maybe not the best example of a success story.

 'Gripping Stuff' 

For Dunlop tyres. Not much more you need to say.

AVERAGE

'Put a tiger in your tank'

By Shell. Pretty stupid, as Tigers are almost extinct. Maybe they're inferring to us that the millions of tigers that have been killed were then distilled into petroleum and that gives your engine some extra pep? Well, alrighty, then. Sign me up for some tiger juice.

ASININE

This category is dedicated to the late Steve Jobs: Steve, I salute you for opening the door wide open to asinine slogans.

Yes. You thought so differently that you created a whole new form of English. I tried to rationalise this but failed. Is Apple asking you to think about the word 'different'. Are they motivating you to think about why this is a poorly-formed sentence? Or maybe it's that they're thinking about being different but haven't quite got around to it yet? I don't know. All I know is this: Genius, my ass. The worst part is this pile of crud was given an Emmy award for advertising. Celebrating mediocrity and illiteracy, yes.

=-=-=-=-=-=-

Subway, not to be outdone, created their own slogan. Hey, if you have to create something, why not model it after a company that's worth Billions of dollars?

'Eat Fresh'

Yep. It looks like you've got a verb and an adjective, there. Maybe you should think about creating a sentence out of that, like, 'Eat a fresh sandwich today.' If you try to make sense of the slogan as it is your brain will start to hurt. It's not as if you can eat 'fresh' -  'fresh' is not something you can consume. The fact my brain has contemplated the meaning of this slogan is why it needs to die.

=-=-=-=-=-=-

There was an ad for some men's hair colouring - so you can dupe women with poor eyesight into believing you're not some decrepit 40+ year-old man (with a 20-year-old delinquent son) who only gets frisky unless they pop a pill half an hour before. Their mind-numbing slogan for this gray-covering concoction is:

'Live forward'

Gah. Note the verb plus adjective: damn you, Jobs. I am not sure how you can 'live forwards'. First of all, I didn't know life had a direction. Why is it that you can't live life to the left, or live life while going backwards. Does that mean every time you're reversing, you're doing something wrong? Are you not "living life forwards"? The fact that some marketing company probably got, as a bare minimum, $500,000 for putting a verb in front of an adjective is just the icing on the cake.

Welcome to my world. My brain hurts so I'll end the post.