CSotD: Virtual Humor
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Dave Ostow comes up with the most frightening first-person game ever. As I’ve said before, I reached a level of enlightenment when I realized that, as middle management, I could adopt the practice of other bosses: Show up, have a drink, greet the people in my department and get the hell out before anybody starts saying things they will regret the next day. Including me.
However, I did encourage my assistant to attend the holiday party, because, I told her, that was how you found out who was sleeping with whom. The next day she said, “Boy, you weren’t kidding!”
No, I wasn’t. Probably another good reason for management to duck out early, so they don’t learn something they shouldn’t know or reveal something nobody should know.
Over at Betty (AMS), Bub’s computer is making him feel stupid, but he’s better off than some people, whose computers reveal actual stupidity. Read on.
Pearls Before Swine (AMS) wins the Accidental Timing Award for this one.
Seems that Rep. Nancy Mace, who never turns down a chance for self-publicity, announced that she had been assaulted by a pro-trans activist. Those who witnessed the encounter said he just shook her hand, using both of his, with enthusiasm but not any visible force, but she called the Capitol Police and then showed up with her arm in a sling.
So far, so good, but she didn’t activate her Stupidity Filter when she posted about the matter.
If you’re going to create sock puppet accounts to ramp up your publicity, you have to remember to switch out of the one with your own name on it first.
Juxtaposition of the Day
There are too many spoilers floating around out there, though I agree with Mike Baldwin that I could use one on my bathroom mirror.
There used to be a series of commercials in which a guy opened his medicine cabinet to find another guy in there selling him something or other, which by the way reveals that a commercial can be memorable without being effective, since I can’t recall the product.
Anyway, the only thing in my medicine cabinet is some old guy who looks back at me like Jacob Marley, mumbling “Tempus fugit.”
And I don’t need spoilers to keep me from freaking out over someone else’s brilliant muffin, but it would be cool if there were a kill file command where you could specify “food” and automatically send all those recipes and dinner shots to a spam file.
I don’t say anything about it, mind you. I have enough trouble avoiding this gaffe:
The Dogs of C Kennel (Creators) are right, and at this time of year when the weather begins to make taking the dog for a second walk optional, it’s good to bear in mind that shutting down the computer and getting outdoors, even when it’s sleeting in your face, restores your brain.
Which provides a chance to segue away from computers and discuss dogs. The Other Coast (Creators) comes at a time when I’ve been exploring new living quarters and finding this issue. I understand the potential problem, but there are places that have an additional damage deposit, which seems fair to me.
I even rented one place that required a fee to steam clean the place after you and your dog left, because of allergens as much as potential accidents and such. I thought that was okay.
I kinda think that a landlord who won’t even discuss the matter is also unlikely to make much effort to attend to requests for repairs and upkeep, so it’s as much a warning as a rejection.
This Lockhorns (AMS) reminds me that, when I was in TV advertising, our sales manager took one of those offers of a free gift (as in the best they are) in exchange for visiting a real estate development. He didn’t want the prize but was curious about the marketing, being in the general business.
He said it was fabulous, that they drove around while a radio kept saying “Lot 47 is sold!” and so forth. He wasn’t sure it was a real radio and could have been a tape, but it got him fired up with each loss of a prime lot and he was about ready to sign a contract himself before it was too late.
Fast forward to when I was working as a business/consumer reporter and someone called about a similar offer where the free gift turned out to be not quite deceptive enough to get the attorney general involved but my inquiries did get the company’s 800 number canceled.
We take whatever victories we can get. If nothing else, all their brochures and mailers became obsolete.
Arlo and Janis (AMS) prompts a memory and a warning. When I was five, I had a Tony the Tiger punching bag, which I also loved hitting.
But if instead of hitting him, you wrestle him to the ground, he will pop.
A more important caution with this Frazz (AMS). I disagree with Caulfield: Gambling can cause you to bet against your own team, which changes sports from fun to obsession.
However, that’s a philosophical objection and there is a more substantial human cost in that obsession.
As noted earlier, Australian cartoonists like Cathy Wilcox have criticized sports betting. Problem gamblers there lose about $4.5 billion (US) per year, in a nation a tenth the population of ours.
Their government is rejecting calls for an advertising ban, but is considering limiting the frequency of ads.
Sports betting seems to be accepted in this country as just another way to piss away the rent, so we remind problem gamblers to not gamble so much, just like we advertise cars doing crazy stuff and remind people not to drive like that.
Which reminds me that, when I was in TV, we had an auto dealer who wanted to show a Jeep jumping off a sand dune and discovered that, before they do that in the national ads, they reinforce the axles.
Another reason to warn people not to drive like that.
New Hampshire just legalized gambling and there’s a new place here with a sign that says casino “and social house” but AFAIK, social houses — or “homes” — are still only legal in Nevada.
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