Whose Faulty Vision

New to New York

I was flying back from Cleveland to NYC this morning, and I happened to be on a plane with a large group of pre-teen girls and their chaperones, who were coming to the city for a dance competition. Most of them had never been to NYC before; I suspect that many had never even been on a plane before, considering the way they applauded the takeoff and landing. It was fun to listen to them ooh and aah when Manhattan came into view through the windows.

I restrained myself from correcting one woman, who told one of the girls that New York is the biggest city in the world. (It’s actually thirteenth by population, and while I don’t have the numbers for area to hand, I can’t imagine it’s nearly the biggest that way either.)

Mommy Blog Gripes

I read a bunch of blogs and newsfeeds relating to kids as part of my job. One of the ones I read is a prominent parenting blog, which I’m not going to link to here, because I’m about to attack it and I don’t want this site turning up in its referer logs.

This parenting blog (okay, let’s be honest, “mommy blog”–it’s written primarily by and for mothers) has the occasional interesting article about parenting issues. But about half of the posts (and this is a blog with many posts every day) are “<Celebrity name> is planning to have children/pregnant/about to give birth/just gave birth!” The only thing that changes is the name of the celebrity. It’s extraordinarily boring.

Seriously, how dull does your life have to be, that you care so passionately about the conditions of the uteruses (uteri?) of women who you have never met and will never meet?

It feels to me like a desperate grab for validation: “All of these famous women are having children, so it must have been the right life choice for me, right? Right?”

Tea Gripe

Why is it that nice hotels, fancy catering services, and other similar high-class food joints that would never dream of serving Sanka crystals (or whatever the bottom-of-the-barrel coffee is; I wouldn’t know, not being a coffee drinker) serve the tea equivalent, Lipton Brisk? Often it’s the only tea available, or they have a couple packets of some cheapo herbal tea but no other black teas.

Lipton Brisk is terrible stuff–it seeps quickly (thus the name, I guess) but tastes bitter and has pretty much no other flavor. The stuff I have in my desk now is Trader Joe’s English Breakfast, which still isn’t all that amazing, but it’s a huge step up.

It’s not like better tea is really that much more expensive than Lipton Brisk. I mean, granted, Lipton Brisk is cheaper, but considering the massive mark-up that restaurants and similar can charge for tea, and considering how cheap tea is in general, it wouldn’t exactly break the bank to serve some decent tea. Come on, guys, get a clue!

Quote of the Whenever

Quote of the Whenever:

“The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm’s way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another–particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e., covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish.”

-Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Microsoft Gets it Right for Once!

Okay, I spend so much time bashing Microsoft for its crappy interfaces and stupid assumptions that everyone needs to work “the Microsoft Way”, that I suppose I should give them credit for getting something right.

I was just writing an e-mail relating to the same subject as my last blog post. Over the course of this e-mail, there was an acronym that I had to use many times, that I knew was going to trip the obnoxious Autocorrect. Once again, to disguise the product I’m working on, I have to make one up: let’s say ITs, by which it assumed I meant “Its”. The first time I typed ITs, it automatically “corrected” it to Its. I un-”corrected” it, and gave a little internal groan at the thought of having to either figure out where autocorrect is hidden and turn it off, or having to un-”correct” the acronym many many times. But amazingly enough, the next time I typed ITs, the software left it alone.

So yeah, basically I’m praising Microsoft for not being quite as blindingly stupid as I was expecting it to be. Low bar, but the program did clear it.

Now With New Hydro-Callphane!

A common tactic in advertising from the ’40s and ’50s was to make up some highfalutin’ sounding name for an ingredient or formula and claim that your product was the only one with it: “our new toothpaste is the only one with Hydro-Calliphane, giving your teeth that extra sparkle!” I assume that viewers back then bought into it, as you see it in a lot of old ads. But the tactic has kind of faded away since then.

I’m watching some research a client did, testing a bunch of potential lines for their product, and several of them use this tactic again. (I of course can’t name the product, or the supposed special formulation, but it’s the same tactic.) But consumers aren’t biting any more. They hear that it has “new Hydro-Calliphane” (not the real name), and want to know more about it before they’ll believe that it means anything.

This doesn’t surprise me, of course, but as someone who’s interested in the history of advertising, it’s interesting.

Cleveland Travel Plans

I have my plans all set for my trip to Cleveland next week. This is some focus groups and “shop-alongs” being organized by the client. I’ll actually be the only one from my ad agency going on the trip, so I’ll get a lot of good face time with the client.

On the second day I’m there (next Thursday), there’s a shop-along, followed by a dinner with the client. I checked with Travel, who told me that there aren’t any flights back late enough that I’d be able to get home on Thursday night if I stayed around for the dinner. So I’m staying a second night in Cleveland, and coming back Friday morning. Which means I’m staying an extra night in Cleveland (with the agency paying for the hotel, of course) just so that I can have dinner with the client. From my point of view, it’s a good thing–getting to know them better will make me more effective, as well as more valuable to my agency. But it’s a lot of money for one dinner, really.