October 15, 2015 • 12:04 pm 0
Filed under: Autobiography, Humor, cults
March 25, 2015 • 9:23 am 0
Volkswagen’s “Stop Dreaming, Start Driving Event: Pinch Me” ad campaign is in heavy rotation on Hulu, so I’ve been seeing the same ads over and over again, and eventually it sunk in: there’s a pretty sexist difference between the two ads in this campaign.
The Jetta ad features a female driver and auto rep. The driver is so excited by the Jetta’s performance she asks the auto rep to pinch her. The rep responds, “No, not while you’re driving.”
In the Passat ad, the male driver also asks to be pinched—the performance is just unbelievable. But this time, the (male) auto rep says “Okay” and pinches the driver.
It seems that, unlike men, women can’t be trusted to control a car while being pinched.
For more on sexism in advertising…
Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel – Jean Kilbourne
Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising – Anthony Cortese
And of course there’s this…
Filed under: Advertising, Fail, sexism, television
June 16, 2013 • 6:32 pm 0
The DMV’s website brings you the same level of service you’ve come to expect from their brick and mortar branches:
Filed under: Fail, California, DMV
January 16, 2013 • 8:13 pm 0
Some headlines from the rumpled paper I found on the chair at my table in the cafe this evening, this past Friday’s New York Times:
3 Kurds Slain in Paris, in Locked-Door Mystery
A Chainsaw-Free Mainstream
Visit by Google Chairman May Benefit North Korea
Man in Plastic Ball Dies on Russia Ski Slope
Monastery from Spain Ends up in California
Gun Enthusiast With Popular Online Videos is Shot to Death in Georgia
Sifting Sand To Rebuild Beaches After Storm
We live in a weird time on a weird planet.
April 14, 2012 • 11:10 am 0
Not the film, a bar on Rue Jacob in Paris
December 16, 2011 • 4:48 pm 0
Check it out: Hannah Hart – Home – Harto & Co.
The official homepage for the latest happenings with Hannah Hart.
Come and take a load off! Have a drink, have a think, buy a shirt, couldn’t hurt.
Big fans of poetry here. Be prepared for intermittent limericks.
Find out about floor pizza, and how all food containing cheese is really just an excuse to eat cheese – and watch Hannah cut out the middleperson – in her latest video.
August 2, 2011 • 7:39 pm 0
The OED word of the day is frenemy, n. :
A person with whom one is friendly, despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry; a person who combines the characteristics of a friend and an enemy. (via Oxford English Dictionary.)
For my anti-word of the day—or perhaps non-word or marketroid word of the day—I am chosing something that the OED is more likely to consider a straight-up enemy than a frenemy: onboarding
Employee Onboarding: There’s a fairly new term in the talent management world and it’s called onboarding employees. This idea has been around for quite some time, and it used to be known as new employee orientation. But as we’ll soon explain, onboarding is more about retaining talent than getting people settled in their new office. (via Money-zine.com.)
Frankly, it sounds a bit like a kind of managerial water-boarding to me.
Whenever I hear management-speak like this, I feel like Göring (mis)reportedly did on hearing the word culture—I get the urge to reach for a weapon of some sort.
And according to those gentlefolk and scholars, Merriam and Webster, it’s not even a word:
For more, on the management practice, see Onboarding – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Filed under: Stuff, business, language, management, words
July 27, 2011 • 7:00 am 0
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˌtɪnfɔɪl ˈhat/ , U.S. /ˈˌtɪnˌfɔɪl ˈhæt/
orig. and chiefly U.S.
A hat made from tinfoil.
With allusion to the belief that such a hat protects the wearer from mind control, surveillance, or similar types of threat. Frequently either extraterrestrials or the government are imagined to be the source of such threats.
(via Oxford English Dictionary.)
The earliest cited use of the term in the OED is from 1982, though the concept has been around much longer – since a 1927 science fiction story, according to the Wikipedia entry.
Be sure to check out The Tinfoil Hat Song. If that speaks to you, you might want to get Tinfoil Hat Linux. You might also want to read “MIT Researchers Claim Tin-Foil Hats Don’t Stop Government Mind Control Rays.”
Myself, I’ll stick to my tinfoil-lined duct tape wallet for the time-being. Aliens and men in black may be scary, but ID snafflers seem like a more real and present danger. How To Make A RFID Blocking Wallet.
Filed under: Humor
October 28, 2010 • 10:00 am 0
“You’ve got the microphone. It’s a Monday morning. There are hundreds of bored commuters listening. The temptation is simply too much…” Spoof London Underground Announcements – Emma Clarke.
Here’s a sample.
October 11, 2010 • 4:18 pm 0
All 55 Things I Own | Exile Lifestyle: What does it say about this guy that one of the only 55 things he owns is an electric nose hair trimmer?
Filed under: Stuff
zerode - a sensibility 