Author: Aaron Weber

Bad Show Ideas

From the NYT on a new show about death-match style craft competition: Ms. Honig added: “That poison and babies idea we had really hasn’t gone anywhere yet.” I’m waiting for the one on people struggling with the newly oppressive bankruptcy law. Or do they already have that one?. Apparently the whole money makover concept is quite a hit. Financial stability sounds boring, but on the other hand, you can really pitch it as “escape from financial doom” and it sounds so much better. At least it beats begging.

Up to Twice as Much or More

Secretly Ironic, now updated up to twice as much, or more, as other blogs. Spring is coming. I walked to work in the drizzle today and it felt good.

I am determined to finish my projects on time, both extracurricular and otherwise. Hence the posting as much as half, or perhaps less, or more, frequently than usual.

Today’s Lesson

When trying to convince someone of something, use the following format:
Tell them what you’re going to tell them.
Tell them.
Tell them what you just told them.

In other words, audiences learn from repitition. In Spanish they say “con sangre, entra la letra,” or “learning comes in with blood,” meaning that you have to beat the lesson into people.

So the literal beating doesn’t work these days but you can still hit them with your endlessly repeated message.

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

From the NYT: Within six months last year, Carlos and Betti Lidsky bought and sold two condominiums. Then they bought and sold two houses. They say they will clear a half-million dollars in profit, and none of the homes have even been built.

Economists point out that the speed and size of inevitable rise in interest rates “will determine whether the speculative fever in the market just goes flat or whether it caves.”

Whoo! Here comes the poppin’!

Dispatch from Our Man in Albuquerque

The ever-perceptive John Fleck of Inkstain.net sends me an article on the latest sort of marriage: real estate marriage. Instead of starting a tiny condominium corporation, more and more people are just banding together in groups of two to six to buy places as tenants-and-owners-in-common. IMHO, you’d do better with a formal co-op or condo association. But hey, whatever works for them.

Obviously I am incredibly jealous.

Justification

Some may call it selling false hope, but I prefer to think of it as fabricating dreams, and what are dreams but the truest expression of human desire for beauty? And what is beauty but truth? So the promotional sciences of advertising and marketing are, in fact, the sciences of truth and beauty.

Drool.