Wednesday, November 30, 2005

ROTFLMAO

That was interesting...


:-))))))))))))


I have no idea what I just did.

htmWHAT?!

Having been all inspired by an ancient guru :-) and dear old friend of mine, the intrepid Cosmic Cabman, who also just got a blog, I thought I might try a brave thing like, say, a simple link or two. So I enlisted the Help button and it said:

“…

  • Google News


  • … you can simply copy the code above and paste it into your template. You'll probably want it in the sidebar, perhaps next to the archives or previous posts list…
    … etc…”

    I almost passed out. There’s a word, in Watership Down, which is used to describe a rabbit caught in the headlights: tharn. It’s that state in which you cannot move, cannot think, cannot breathe. That’s me, with code. You can’t just wave some html in my face without warning me first. I need a valium and a fluffy toy to soften the edges a bit. My last brush with html was about five years ago when I flunked the course. But I won’t be scared off that easily this time, so I grabbed a fluffy toy and clicked the link that said, “How do I learn some basic html?”

    And that’s as far as it goes, so far. Link, schmink. Maybe I need to try another template.

Billboards and Blogging: Nothing’s for Free


I’ve been wondering about free online-journal/blog services being so FREE, especially to us Joe Soaps. Here is my conspiracy theory:

There is a branch of organised crime called ‘Marketing’

Marketing would like us to believe that a giant photograph of a luxury all-terrain vehicle is better than the view of natural wonders which it is obscuring, and will go to great lengths, including chainsaws, dynamite and bribery of officials, to ensure that the view of the giant photograph itself is not obscured by any natural wonders, such as an annoying old tree, or a pesky rocky outcrop.

These are the people whose evangelistic mission is to get Stuff sold. They are fundamentalists, and their mantra goes, “Stuff is god, Stuff is happiness. Stuff is the measure of your success. In order to access god and happiness, and therefore to succeed, you must get more Stuff. Consumption is the key to your potential, which is as limitless as the happiness you will have access to, if you only consume.”

Now it’s all gone to seed…

‘Seeding’ is the big new thing in marketing circles. A Seed is nothing more and nothing less than a very carefully selected (and paid) peer. Someone who meets all the right criteria is inserted into a group, at school or in the workplace or anywhere else where peer acceptance might register on a success gauge. The Seed will do two things:
1) Hang out and become part of the group, then collect very subtle information from within, the type of information usually unavailable to those not in the group. He learns the group’s ‘code’, if you will, and brings it back to HQ (marketing company). HQ then uses this information to sort of re-encode the schpiel in order to sell Stuff to the group in ways it can positively identify with. The product now speaks the group’s language.
2) Bring ‘buzz’ back from HQ. This is word of mouth, viral chit-chat of the “look at this” or “have you tasted” kind, and if the Seed is worth his salt, ie cool enough in the group to be emulated, the product he’s buzzing about will show rocketing sales figures. Not very nice, but quite clever. Good old-fashioned espionage and propaganda. Yes, they are doing this to our kids and it isn’t illegal. And there we were, thinking the child actually needed this garment/beverage/gadget for some weird teenage reason.

It was only a matter of time before HQ found out about Blogs. What is a blogosphere if not a properly hierarchical peer group?

In 2000 there was an article that said something along the lines of “as Weblogging becomes more widespread among corporations, there's likely to be some resentment from the pioneers who see it as an anti-corporate concept.” Well I’m not exactly a pioneer but I can imagine...

So now there’s this explosion. Anyone can do it, you no longer have to know a hundred programming languages and be a member of Mensa. You don’t have to be the type of person who’d rather spend her spare cash on extra RAM than on that cute new pair of shoes anymore. Joe Soap can do this thing and what’s more, he can do it for FREE. Keep in touch with family and friends, have your say. And that’s not all! Engage with the global community, make new friends and influence people… All for free.

Well I’m not buying it. Which isn’t to say I’m not buying into it because, clearly, here I am. But when I put two and two together, based on my experience with marketing and on my observation of the metamorphosis - of the great worldwide web of shared information into Consumer Central - I get a definite four. Nothing’s for free.

I propose that there is a frenzy of excited marketing dogs sniffing around personal blogs at any given moment, pissing on tyres, picking up on hints people didn’t even know they’d dropped, all the better to target you with, my dear. Monsanto itself couldn’t make a herbicide apocalyptic enough to kill these weed Seeds before they sprout. You can be sure that those who offer free online journal type services (such as this one which is ‘ours’ to exploit) are not only in on this, but cashing in on it too. Mystery solved? Or conspiracy theory? You decide.

The only way to beat these Stuffing lunatics is to renounce life as we know it and find a cave somewhere. One without a billboard within a 50 kilometre radius, that is. If such a one still exists.


Meanwhile…

It turns out that this blog was hidden only to me. Thank you David, for the magic shift button! We all have one I’m sure, but I didn’t know that you could also use it to refresh stubborn webpages… of course, you have to hold it down for quite a while, which took me the best part of the past week to discover. It’s my new toy. I remind me of Eeyore, getting his Birthday Present from Pooh and Piglet, which amounts to a deflated balloon and an empty Hunny jar. Pooh and Piglet are concerned that something might have Gone Wrong with it all, but Eeyore just happily (as happily as Eeyore can at any rate) sits there putting the balloon in the jar and taking it out again.


:-)


Friday, November 25, 2005

Still Testing


Well at least I now have access. Even though the posts are hidden somewhere in "search this blog". This is all terribly amusing.


let it go - the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise - let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go - the
truthful liars and
the fair false friends
and the boths and
neithers - you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go - the
big small middling
tall really
the biggest and all
things - let all go
dear

so comes love.


e.e. cummings



Favourite Movie Moments:

1. Daniel Day Lewis leaps through the thundering waterfall with the words, “I WILL find you!”
- Last of the Mohicans

2. Scarlett tears down Tara's magnificent hunter-green velvet drapes with the golden tassels, for a dress to make Rhett weep, and Mammy's eyes go just about as popped-out as any eyes before or after.
- Gone With The Wind

3. Dory speaks Whale.
- Finding Nemo

4. Angelica Huston sashays through her house saying, “This is my research assistant, Xavier…”
- Life Aquatic


I'm sure that one day, when I have this blog beaten into submission, I will begin to say coherent things in it. Well, I'm not SURE sure, but I hope I will. En Garde, Blogger! Under the old oak at dawn! Victory will be mine!

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Enlightenment Lite


Finally, the self-help DVD we’ve all been waiting for. Have your cake and eat it too. You, also, can become god. Forget your troubles, c’mon get happy. See the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know” now, or cook it up in your kitchen.

Here’s the recipe*:

Layer the following in a large plastic bowl -

Metaphysical mixed berries (skinned and seedless)
A handful of new seasonal fruits (NLP etc)
Pasteurised Quantum Theory custard (fat free, sugar free)
Fingers of assimilated but unrealised eastern mystic sponge cake (both Fabulous GuruTM and The Monk Without The Monastery!TM are good brands for this dessert)
Interconnectedness (Patronising consumer version) jelly
A tot of God liqueur

Serve chilled with a sprig of fresh Political Correctness.

*A helping of this should cause no discomfort other than a very temporary high. However, should you eat the whole bowlful, you’ll need gastric lavage and a good slap, and two years community service mopping floors at a government hospital of your choice, during which you will receive a compulsory weekly debriefing with, alternately, Desmond Tutu and Lin Sampson. You might emerge with your feet firmly back on the ground and able to once again tread the little footpaths of your own earthly human existence, the coming-to-terms-with of which is what your life is actually for. But we can’t promise this.


Here, by Popular Demand, is the FAQ…


1. What is Pandora’s Aquarium?

1.1 It’s a song by Tori Amos -
I am not asking you to believe in me. Boy I think you’re confused I’m not Persephone.

1.2 It’s a version of Walter Battiss’ Fook Island, but less messy and without the code-speak, and you don’t need to be Fooked to visit, you just need to be able to survive the End Of Days. And, it has recipes plus incredibly subjective, sometimes emotional, and even occasionally incendiary, book and movie reviews. It’s a sort of attic soup kitchen, the main stage for a largely unwritten-as-yet but partly illustrated comic, which is a version of Sandman but with less Sax & Violins and more mermaids. When only a single comic series of this ilk exists, one has no choice but to copy it. Neil Gaiman set the bar so high that I will probably be dead before I am finished. Thanks so much Neil.



2. Why are you doing this blogging thing?

I’m not sure.

I need a soapbox? No that’s not it. Because I have too much time on my hands? Possibly. I did the blogger code questionnaire and I have double minus scores for most questions so it isn’t because I’m a geek who lives the internet high-life either. In fact, I’m a Luddite. Go on, laugh. Hack me, it’s so easy. We’ll see who wins one day when the lights go out, and they will. I will have vegetables in my garden and you technological geniuses will have to eat your motherboards.

3. Are you some kind of religious nut?

No.

4. So why do you sometimes use religious language?

Because it’s melodramatic.

5. What do you do for a living?

Absolutely nothing official at the moment. I used to be a designer but now I wouldn’t even design you so much as one corporate nametag even if you paid me a million bucks. Ok, for a million bucks I would but I want the money up front.

6. Can you really cook?

Yes.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Jangle Balls

For these few days, the hills are bright with cherry blossom. Longer, and we should not prize them so.

- Yamabe no Akahito

Which is why Xmas just isn't Christmas anymore. From October, jangle bells and Xmas ditties, three whole months of special specials, sweaty plastic-suited santas...