Author: Aaron Weber

Baffling Ads

I’ve been hoping Slate’s Ad Report Card feature would take on the IBM Linux ad with the creepy kid, and sure enough, they did.

I spoke with some IBM marketing people about the ad last week at LinuxWorld Expo and they said “the kid is supposed to be a child prodigy, like Linux.” I think the ad is a little better than the first series of cryptic ads– peace, love, penguin– in that it gives you some sort of idea what they’re talking about. People at first didn’t even know the ads were for Linux! Of course those ads were aimed at building street cred with techies, so I guess that makes sense. These ads are aimed at building credibility and image, too– there’s no call to action, like with other ads (“Ask your doctor about the Meat Lover’s Pizza, call 1-900-MEATY now!”).

But really, the ones where Linux was a basketball player against the Bad Guys team (Virus, etc.) were clearer and gave you more of a feeling about what the heck they were talking about. They obviously have some sort of strategy there, and I’m certainly glad to see Linux being promoted so well, and given such a cool face, even if, as the review notes, there’s not a lot of substance behind the ad, and it’s mostly aimed at a very small group of people, leaving the rest of us to feel that we’re kinda out of the loop. Maybe that’s it– we all need to figure out what this is, so we can be cool like that creepy-ass kid who talks to celebrities.

Restaurant Review: Craigie St. Bistrot

Craigie St. Bistrot gets 9.3 out of 10 from Citysearch and I think it deserves it. Despite the quality and price tag indicating a formal special-occasion restaurant, the place has a friendly style. The menu focuses on fresh, seasonal, and local ingredients in a decidedly French presentation and equally French wine list.

The equally well-rated Evoo, however, remains my favorite Boston-area restaurant.

As Nana Used to Say

Sometimes, on weekend afternoons, when Megan’s out at the movies with her friends, I really enjoy having the house to myself. I used to get lonely, but now being alone is just a time for reflection. I’ve got all the cleaning done and now, as Nana used to say, “the sun is below the yardarm, why don’t you fix me a highball?”

My favorite drink right now is Old Rip Van Winkle rye. They make an excellent bourbon too, but the ryle is amazing: it’s softened with age like bourbon does, but it’s still a richer flavor. I use a less expensive whiskey if I’m mixing Manhattans, but this is perfect neat.

Wheels on the bus go round and round

I’m still on the bus. The toilet has frozen solid, but I have network access so it’s all good. They have stopped for pee-breaks periodically, so we’re running pretty late. But again, I have internet access, so I’m doing the same shit I’d be doing at home, except possibly I’m in a more comfortable chair. Although without beer and with a rather icky sandwich from Marche Movenpick.

Anyway, on to the links:
Wonkette, a DC politics-and-gossip blog from a former Suckster. Oh, how I miss Suck and Feed. The “Who’s Better” votes alone were so cool!

Low Culture, which brings us mockery of politicians. Notably, the If Dubya were your boyfriend joke, which is wicked funny.

UnIntelligent Design advocates, trying to persuade the Ohio state legislature to include their non-evolutionary creation theory in high school curricula– namely that the Creator was kinda dumb. I can’t wait for Scientology’s inclusion in 9th grade Life Science.

And speaking of special interests, are you surprised at all that the sugar industry opposes new diet guidelines that suggest we’d be less fat if we ate less sugar? Yeah, me neither.

Nostalgia is a corrosive emotion

I’m on the way back from LWE on the Limoliner luxury executive bus, listening to the people behind me talk about nearest-neighbor compression algorithms and realtime processing in embedded devices. I think they were at the show too. The bus is fabulous: clean, spacious, comfortable, and of course it has net access. Highly recommended: NYC to Boston for less than the train and in roughly equivalent style, although not quite as fast. And of course, network.

In a few weeks I’ll be going to Vegas and I’m thinking about the last time I was there, at another conference, in November 2000. I was so lonely and for such good reasons: I kept burning my bridges. I guess I still burn them, or at least let them burn and watch them fall. Nonetheless, I’m quite attached to those ashes and charred embers of my past.

For example, I used to keep a set of Wired Magazine issues from 1999 to 2001. They got fatter and fatter, then they shrank abruptly with the crash. I eventually tossed them– what was I doing with back issues of a magazine I don’t even read? I still have a Kozmo.com receipt and an Eazel t-shirt. I have fewer physical mementoes of people from my past, but I think of them more often, turning moments over and over in my mind. And there’s music and weather and places and tones of light that remind me of people and times. I used to be more susceptible to this sort of thing, really. Now I sort of slip into a reverie, but I used to feel gutwrenching nostalgia or pain or anxiety seeing a picture of an ex or driving past the house of a friend I’d lost.

They say nostalgia is corrosive; I think it may have been Sartre who talked of it as politically dangerous. I certainly agree that it’s as destructive as unspoken resentment.

Nonetheless, I’m listening to Tom Wait songs: “Picture in a Frame” which is about promises and the pain of fulfilling them, and “Black Market Baby,” which is about temptation, and the pain of giving in to it despite knowing it’s the worst possible choice:

Liars say their prayers to her
and sailors ring her bell
the way a moth mistakes a lightbulb
for the moon and goes to hell
There’s no prayer like desire,
there’s amnesia in her kiss,
she’s a swan and a pistol
and she will follow you like this…

Etc. ‘n’ Things

I’m in NYC this week at LinuxWorld Expo. The elevators at my hotel are being reprogrammed and reinstalled, or something, and the upshot is that it takes up to fifteen or twenty minutes to leave the building at peak times. 50 floors, a dozen or so elevators, general insanity.

The tradeshow is what a tradeshow is: sore back, lots of hand-shaking and smiling, dry air, overpriced everything (I thought three bucks for a Coke was bad, but apparently the actual show management prices are worse: for having anything delivered to the show floor– a letter, say, or a laptop– the fees start at $200. This is called “drayage” which is defined as “the use of a dray” or “the fee paid for the use of a dray.” And a dray, as you all know, is a horsecart or similar low cart used for pulling heavy things around, which has largely been replaced by wood pallets and forklifts.)

At the end of the day I begin to wonder if I’m repeating myself. I am, of course, but I can’t remember if I’ve said a particular portion of my spiel to any given customer. After a few hundred times, it gets confusing.

Anyway, after all the polish and shine of the day, I was amused to find Robert Love selling an ironic trucker hat. Oh, sure, trucker hats are ironic appropriation in and of themselves– but this one is a trucker hat’s trucker hat. Brilliant. (See also the Dave Camp fanboy shirt).

Dope

NYT article on sports and doping:

Ultimately, the debate over athletic doping extends beyond sport. ”The current doping agony,” says John Hoberman, a University of Texas at Austin professor who has written extensively on performance drugs, ”is a kind of very confused referendum on the future of human enhancement.”

First the athletes, then the rest of us mortals.

In addition to the various details of the dopnig world — the way legit science filters into the supplements, the fact that there’s an international trade in urine samples, and that urine-sample-couriers are routinely bribed — they note that the word “doping” has been in use since about 1900 and apparently is related to the Dutch word “dop” which referred to the pre-battle booze Zulu warriors drank.

Feelings

After work I trudged through the cold and went home and had hot soup and some whiskey and played some video games with my girl (how lucky am I to find a girlfriend who will play video games with me?) and went to bed and it was all good.

Today, I am listening repeatedly to “Sleep the Clock Around.” I used to listen to it when I was really low– I’d get in the tub and put it on repeat and lie there trying to relax from an incredibly long day of back pain and stress and deadlines and loneliness. And today it seems like a happy song, not a sad one. Not sure why.

I may actually get this article done on time, which will be good. I’m at around 2000 of the 3000 words required, and about 2/3 through with what I have to say, so that’s a good sign. On a tight schedule because it has to go out for Brainshare. Exciting!

To do list

  • Make a shirt that says “DEAD MONEY” or “INEXPERIENCED PLAYER” and wear it to Las Vegas.
  • Make a shirt that says “DISSIDENT PATRIOT” and wear it on an airplane, possibly while going to Vegas.
  • Make fliers explaining the scientific method for idiots and pass them out. Ideally do this when it’s warm out, at a baseball game, near that guy who passes out the Chick tracts.
  • Make fliers explaining that Santa does not exist. Pass them out at Downtown Crossing during early December. Fight with parents of small, crying children who suddenly realize that their parents are not perfect, which is I suppose a good lesson to teach one’s children.