Marketing 102

Marketing 101 is easy: come up with an idea that will get people talking and, hopefully, get some people to try and like your stuff.

Marketing 102 strives to take that to the next level: by getting people to talk about your thing / idea, without actually talking about it, thus bringing in a larger crowd who couldn't care less about what you're selling but who, by talking about it to enough people, will expand your reach to potential clients well outside of your usual circle.

Case in point, Where Magazine, published in countless cities/counties around the world:

By strategically placing a woman - yes, it had to be a woman - on top of the first ''e'', you make your magazine look like it's called ''Whore'', which will, as Will Ferrell would put it, ''gets the people going'' in addition to being ''provocative''.

It has to feature women because by doing so, you get their consent by default and can use tired stereotypes that stopped working in the 1990s to ''keep them in their place as a subdued minority'' when they, in fact, outnumber men both in population and now, in the workplace in jobs that require higher education. They haven't quite reached equal pay yet in many markets, but that's just one more fight to help them forget they outnumber men anyhow.

Also, if a cover like this - devoid of highly sexualized imagery and offensive visuals - can still anger a few nutjobs just with the placement of a head over half a letter and get media coverage, that's an added bonus.

Much ado, meet nothing. Nothing worth the internet sensation it will soon become, nothing that will solve the real issues (equality), even if the rags stop being so obvious about their participation in the generalized conspiracy to keep women and minorities ''in their rightful place''.

Owners Of A Lonely Heart

Life in the 21st century, where everyone in the civilized world has a computer (or computer-like device), the internet facilitates regime change, and people would rather connect with folks at the other end of the planet than their next-door neighbour.

And where half the planet is starving and doesn't have a roof over their heads...

The Atlantic's current cover story looks at the phenomenon of social media and how it's taken over our lives.

Kind of reminds me of a humourous picture that circulates over Facebook every so often...

Weird that I actually had to find this on Facebook, eh?

I, for one, even when I take time off away from Facebook, probably check it once in the morning. I'm glad I only go on Twitter once every couple of months, because I don't want to think about how much time I'd waste online before actually getting anything done if that wasn't the case...

Tim Thomas Strikes Again

So you're a high-profile athlete in your sport...

And I mean high-fucking-profile: playoff MVP, two-time best-at-your-position, Olympian silver medalist. You are Tim Thomas, star goalie of the Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins.

You stack your Facebook profile page with highly political statuts updates, refuse to meet the President of the United States and... won't answer questions about it to the media?

You're dumber than I thought, and that's knowing you fully support the Tea Party assholes.

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

Teenagers And Sex (And Teachers And Lawyers)

Ok, we've heard the story a million times: a teacher has sex with a student, goes to jail. More and more, the teacher is female and the student is male. You can see pictures of many of them here; most are good-looking, one was even married to the school's principal (and it seems the student forced himself onto her, but she's the one who did jail time, proving it's about time we have a second look at how these 'child molestation' laws are written in the first place).

The most recent case is Melinda Dennehy, a former New Hampshire high school teacher who didn't sleep with a kid, but emailed him nude pictures, some even ''with her genitals exposed''... oh my!

There's an older column from a place I'd never heard of before called Associated Content, in which Sylvia Cochran writes:

Prior to joining the ranks of bad teachers, Melinda Dennehy stands accused of sending an x-rated photo of herself to a child. She is now on leave with pay. With pay?

There are so many things wrong with those two sentences, and most of them are in its writer's mindset. First off, where is it said in ''woman sends picture to kid'' that the person isn't good at their job? Is a driver a bad driver when he has an accident? Would that mean drivers who haven't been in any are de facto good? And then when someone is ''accused'' (yes, I know, she pleaded guilty today, but this article is dated from March) of something, their whole livelihood is taken away? What if she hadn't pleaded guilty? Or what if it was a plea bargain, and she chose that (a misdemeanor, by the way, sending pictures) instead of something else because fuckers in the media have already made her to be a monster in that case and her name has been smeared as a teacher anyway?

In this case, she sent a kid nude pics. The kid then proceeded to send them to his friends (who seemed to like them), and they made the rounds. The kid should not walk away from this scott-free: he was a minor, in possession of porn, and distributing said porn to other minors. Isn't that an offense - or two - too?

This whole case is fucked, and it was allowed to go to court, with at least one lawyer on each side, a judge, and police showing evidence.

Meanwhile, hard drugs are rampant in the streets, bankers are stealing billions of dollars from their customers, multinational companies are ruining our water supplies inland (i.e. what we need to live) and killing everything in the ocean, and kids are dying in wars overseas where half the people they themselves shoot at are civilians they can't tell apart from the bad guys.

Surely the U.S. Supreme Court decision to reverse the Chicago gun ban will strike balance in the world - oh, wait, cops keep dying in Chicago since May.

All of this makes me lean towards a simpler world - make everything legal, except 'harming others' and 'stealing'. Let the rest sort itself out. Boy, am I glad I was 20 by the time I started fucking my teachers. Although I did lose my virginity at 15, with a chick who was 19. I should report her.

The Fall Of DVDs

So... are DVDs dying an early death?

According to Julia Boostin of CNBC, the numbers are way down, and it can't be blamed on the high definition discs (Blu-Rays), because they're still just a fringe percentage; they also can't be blamed on illegal downloading because broadband capacities just aren't there yet (and, especially in North America, internet service providers are capping most people, so it'll soon become more expensive to download stuff than just purchase it...).

So who's to blame?

In my French-language blog, I often write about the decline of quality in movie entertainment, as many theaters are closing their doors for lack of profits, blaming the media, the internet, the current economy, DVDs, the movie-going public - but never admitting that reserving six different screens in the same complex to such crap as Transformers 2, despite its genius casting of Hottie Of The Moment Megan Fox (yup, I plugged her in here again - and to think I'm not even a 'fan'! - then again, it seems even the film crew wasn't) is an obvious sign of a future downfall.

Whatever. I own a ton of DVDs and have hours of entertainment at home - enough to last me until the end of my life, possibly. So even if they stop making them, I'm taken care of.

Joe The Plumber Talks - Again

Anyone remember Joe The Plumber, whose actual name is Samuel Wurzelbacher?

I still don't understand why he almost became an issue in the last American federal elections. Oh, I get why the Sarah Palins and Redneck Nation in general loved him, he represents them at their retarded best. But why the general media, who had just re-grown a pair of balls after almost a decade of tucking them at the back of their collective thongs, gave him air time just blows me away.

Anyhow, here he is again. A whore for anything that records his words and takes his picture, he decided it was smart to answer a Q&A with Christianity Today. Uh huh. Can't you just smell it?

Sample quote:

I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children.

Oh, yeah. Apparently, Joe The Genius doesn't see the difference between gays and pedophiles. Men who want to be with men are the same as men who force little boys and little girls into doing terrible things that will affect them for life.

He doesn't seem to realize he is more 'at risk' with his gay friends than his kids are. He confuses Gloria Gaynor and Michael Jackson. A genius, I tell you.