Random observations

Nope, under the strict "We stick our Gods in anything we can" policy of the present US Govt majority , such conviviality and lighthearted spoofery could lead to dancing, which , along with naked statues carved by the WPA, is arguably leading the great American Union into decay and moral decline.

Hell, Id move to Andorra if I could find out how the hell to get there .

Being from Andorra...

You can take the bus from Bordeaux, or a lorry from Limoges..

It's somehow disconcerting, when they decide to put one of those cleaninglists up in the office toilets - you know, the ones they have in fancy restaurants too, where its signed when the toilet was cleant by whom, every two hours - and the last time it was signed was two weeks ago...

When I was in Hungary, I noticed that no one cleaned the Outhouses. It was cold and no one went out to them unless nature called.

This would be a good subject for Professor Nimh to complain about.

Hhmm... you must have been in Berettyóújfalu. I dont really get out of town much, myself..

Were you there in winter?

You know you spend too much time on the computer when you walk by an ATM, catch a glimpse of the screen that makes you think its out of order, and visualising what the glimpse was, see a text that begins with "404 .."

farmerman :
if you are planning to go to andorra , i'd suggest you fly to paris and start marching to the south , perhaps turn slightly to the right after a few days - it might get you there
hbg



when you've reached this place ... you are there .
i collect postcards , pls send one from andorra - it's missing from my collection .

"Suhteellisen siedettävä näkymä Andorran pääkaupunkiin Andorra la Vellaan."
(sorry , the travel guide is in finnish , perhaps they understand it in andorra . )

does anyone love me here ? does anyone know me ?.......am i going to have to say Help ?

I dont really know you, but if you need a hug, here is one:

{{{Algis.Kemezys}}}

Take care

I just found a perfect example of post-media advertising I think.. you hear a lot about how big companies realise that big-media commercials and ads are exhausting themselves as means to reach consumers, especially young ones, and how they are mining all kinds of creative branding strategies. Like sponsoring club nights, the more effective when the less visible, etc - not about shoving ads in people's faces but about making them associate the hippest night out with the brand - and online of course. On MySpace: brands and products creating their own MySpace profile, bonding with consumers one-on-one by attracting them as "Friends".

They pretty clever - it works. The best I seen so far is this one, by a new drink from Sprite. No trace of the standard MS layout. The rather blunt "hypnosis" theme is actually a follow-up from a (to me, at least) truly obscure little ad that appears in the MySpace "Featured Profiles" every once in a while - basically a pic with a bouncing then glowing lemon announcing that "subliminal advertising" is now starting. I was curious, had no idea what it was for, found out. Is how its works.

Moreover, "sublymonal"s About me/interests/details sections are actually kinda funny in a low-key, surreal/ironic way. And they put up Talib Kweli as music. And put real MySpacers in the featured Friends section.

And what kinda struck me is how, yeah, there are indeed 160 MySpacers whove already registered as Friends. The Comments section is intriguing. People actually interacting with the page like they would with an individual. All tongue in cheek and joky of course ("me and 7up are just good friends now!! Please baby, U gotta believe me!!"). But still - I dunno - there's something striking about all these people talking to a brand like with a person - like, as with as self-evident and equal a part of their social scene as the bouncer of the club or that guy thats always at the end of the bar.

I mean, there's all these people there who do, after all, make the effort of sending a Friend request, and then returning again later once accepted to make a comment; to say "yo dude thx the add , sprite rulz!", or "I LOVE YOU WITH ALITTLE VODKA YOU MAKE MY WEEKENDS COMPLETE!!!!", or even just, ""This is Gods favorite soda, how do I know? He told me."

Something.

On a wholly different note, I passed this acquarium in a shop-window and it had this biggish weird fish thats normally kinda "grazing" on the floor but now was sucking flat against the front side - and do you know that this kind of fish's mouth really looks like a vagina?

I don't know if you know about Vance Packard. He wrote the Hidden Persuaders back in, I think, the late fifties, early sixties. I once wanted to go into advertising (and damn well should have) but got caught up by that book. I barely remember it, advertising as something sometimes nefarious. My dad was at a major agency then lost that job (nefarious reasons, of course, only half kidding), so with those two in combo I decided to fry other fish. Still like sharp commercials.

All this time later, the subliminal thing gets acknowledged and played with...

On the fish mouth/vagina thing, did you see the thread about the Beijing stadium?

<going off to look>

Didn't Woody Allen say something like this before he married his
X-wife's daughter?

There's elections here again. Local elections. Again the posters on every street corner, walls, everywhere. There's one on all the places in the streets to the left of here <points>. It has the face of the earnest candidate and his name. His last name is Apathia.

Not to want to continue the fish theme on this thread, but... the unnerving thing about gnocchi is that it feels like you're eating the testacles of a small animal.

It's maddeningly difficult to find pictures of simple nouns in magazines. My daughter has this weekly homework assignment to paste 3 or 4 pictures of objects starting with a certain letter (there are 4 slots, but she can draw one). The expectation is that adults will come up with the cuttings from magazines, the kids paste, write the letter at the bottom, and add any decorations.

Last week's was "I". Impossible! I was flipping through the magazine and thinking, "Um, 'idiot', no, 'iris' [of an eye, tiny], no too obscure..." It's really hard! People, people, people and buildings.

This week's is "T", and after looking through the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the NYT Men's fashion special magazine, the UW alumni magazine, a AAA magazine, a White Flower Farm catalogue, and the latest New Yorker, I have a small tie and a table.

Hmph.

I just gave up and found a picture of a tiger online and printed it. She can draw a tree.

speaking of fishing did anyone hear about the guy who caught the 12 foot barbado ?