Thursday, October 25, 2007

Slap Happy

Close your eyes. Assemble a brief register of Sexy Cynosures who need a Slapping. And now dare to tell me that Natalie Portman is not at the top of your list.
I have long despised Portman. Even more that I despise erstwhile hottie Scarlett Johansson for enrolling in Spin Class thereby losing her plush décolleté. (Damn you, Scarlett, and your inscrutable fondness for honing your assets. Once, you looked like Brigitte Bardot’s clever younger sister. And now, you look like Princess Anne.)
She’s just SO falsely uncontaminated. I imagine her cupping her ideal breasts in her perfect hands each morning and mouthing the words “You’re so much nicer than all those dirty girls” into her Lalique looking glass.
But, to paraphrase the great D Bowie, I got problems.
These problems, however, are not strewn about the marketplace so lavishly as hers. Portman, whose greatest role remains a cameo in exquisite shambles Zoolander, has made a new film. And if this news alone does not suffice to destroy your day, behold, the Princess Chagrin.
Apparently, she got her kit off in a new Wes Anderson short. (You know him. Plonker who keeps ripping off old John Irving plotlines re the Dysfunctional Underbelly of American Families. Tenenbaums. Snore. Bill Murray in a wetsuit. Snore.) Apparently, she regrets it.
Sometimes, says Natalie, “the most powerful thing you can do is say no.”
And sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do to promote a puffed-up short film made by a middling auteur is to tell everyone you’re NEKKID in it.
I shall not convey the link to the mildly p-rnographic entertainment here as I believe it is every woman’s duty to locate her own smut. However, rest assured, if the remit of your filthy id extends to Portman, you can find her out-of-context and out-of-clothes on teh interwebs. You don’t need to queue at a dreary film festival.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Taking Out the Trash

Pitching one’s self into the whiffy mud of the populaire is, as you know, giddy fun.
And, let it be said, this week there are plot points of satisfactory quality INCLUDING a Britney Bad Mommy reprise.
However, it is with a leaden heart I offer a week’s digest of important debris. For I learned that we have all missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day. By an entire month.
There are few occasions not improved by means of a poor West Country accent. Next year, when my handicap is hovering at something below a parlous 89, I hope to be able to say,
“I made paaarrrrrr.”
Or, perhaps I could say to the peculiarly talented Amy Winehouse,
“You look terrible, east some Caaarrrrrbs.”
If you’ve not heard of this tabloid treasure, she’s a little like Courtney Love. Albeit with a far greater (a) faculty for substance abuse and (b) talent.
Recently dropped by 007 producers as the author of the next Bond theme song, the out-and-proud bulimic lost no time in getting herself arrested. In tolerant Norway, of all places.
Brava, La Spears. In a visual economy crowded with badly behaved young women, you again wail like a wanton diva. This Callas of crack must have done something awful. Perhaps she has become a public virtuoso on her flesh mandolin. Perhaps, under the influence of scrutiny or smack, she humped a fire hydrant. I dunno, do you expect me to read all this stuff?
I’ve been reading Ulysses for the last EIGHTEEN YEARS, so why should I endure anything more than the gist of this nonsense?
Anyhoo, the Los Angeles Superior Court has suspended the mother’s rights to visitation. Which is sad. Of course.
However, we must remember that Britney is a carbon metaphor for the profligate United States and not an actual person.
She’s not real.
If you don’t believe me, skype her and ask her to repeat Descartes’ dictum.
Which, of course, you’ll recall is
Cogito AAAARRGO Sum
Only another eleven months until International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

How NOT to Market Tampons to Women

Okay, maybe you're not a woman. But you don't have to be a female rocket scientist to figure out that the advertising you've seen recently on T.V. for Tampax Cardboard (yes, you heard right) is a very dumb example of branding for many so reasons, two of them quite obvious:

1) Tampax applicators have been cardboard for at least the 30 years I've been using them.

2) When I make my list of words that evoke feelings of comfort, absorption, and security, cardboard is way down at the bottom of that list.

I think Tampax might have gotten a clue that the new Cardboard campaign is going over like a lead brick (possibly the only material lower on my comfort list than cardboard).

If you look at the google cached images from the Tampax site, you'll see a couple product images with the new "cardboard" theme, and some images with the word cardboard. But when you click on them, the images magically transform to Tampax's Pearl branding (aaah, pearls).

Business should be wary when Great Marketing Minds invade the conference room suggesting that a re-branding or branding upgrade will help "move the needle" in terms of product sales.

Especially if they come in using the word "Cardboard."

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

OMGZ it happen.

AKMA begatz Shelley begatz the LOLcat Bible:


20Invisible Man say, “I can has fish n’ birdz.” 21Fish go in water, birdz go in sky. It good. 22Invisible Man say, “make lots little fish and little birdz. Fish make fish in water; birdz make birdz in air.” 23It get dark again, then lite: day fife.

24Invisible Man say, “I can has aminulz.” It happen. 25Invisible Man make kitteh n’ cowz n’ snakes n’ stuff. Iz good.

26Invisible Man say, “I can has man that look like me.” He rulez. 27Invisible Man make man like him, boy and gurl. 28Invisible Man tell man, “ur in mai Earth, pwnz0rz mai aminulz.” 29And u eats fruitz. 30Aminulz eat greenz.

31Invisible Man saws creayshunz: iz good. It get dark, then lite: day sicks.


;-)
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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Facebook - Child's Play?

Kara Swisher has a great post on the immature nature of Facebook apps. See, here's the thing: immature and silly is really fun at first because it's fun-ny at first. But once you've filled a few fake fish tanks, posted to a few groups, planted a few pretend gardens, and caught a few hot potatoes, you start wondering if you might be spending that time billing or planting real gardens with your kids.

Kara says she's done burning brainpower on whether or not to catch spuds:

Right now on Facebook, I have been trying to decide what to do near on two weeks or more, after receiving a “Hot Potato” tossed to me by my old boss, Washington Post Co. CEO and Chairman Don Graham (oh, yes–his family also owns a key hunk of the legendary paper, too).

For those who don’t know what a digital Hot Potato is: It is a widget (also called a third-party app) created by a very nice-looking group of guys at a design outfit called Hungry Machine for the Facebook platform.

She says she gets it. I think she does get it. I get it too. You get it, right?

I'm all for stupid things. Hell I sometimes AM the stupid thing. I can even manage some guilty giggles for an imaginative group name even when people around the world are dying. But there is something toddleresque about these kewl apps that feel very much like a child who does something cute, thereby eliciting uproarious laughter from his relatives, so then he keeps doing it until you're so sick of him that you want to toss him like a hot potato.

Kara asks: "...if that is all there is, can Facebook really build a viable and long-lasting business on what is essentially a bunch of games that will ultimately become wearying for users? Doesn’t it need more robust apps that actually are useful and relevant and make Facebook the service that Zuckerberg has often told me was a 'utility'?"

I believe with all my heart that play is the killer app of the Internet. So I'm all about the proliferation of just-for-fun widgets on Facebook. But I am also expecting more. I'm expecting to be able to accomplish as much on Facebook as I can on the net as a whole. I expect to be able to share and collaborate and engage and generate STUFF. Because the most productive form of playing is making stuff.

But a gazillion people can't be wrong - and Facebook is definitely the "in" social network. As much as I try to forget about Facebook and spend more time being productive, I do get pulled back in a few times a week.

After all, I have fish to send, Scobles to feed, and a garden to tend to.

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What to do with teenagers when roller skating gets old? SkyZone!

As the mother of a teenage daughter, figuring out activities that give ME a break, are nearby, don't involve computers and cell phones...