picture of bill's head in a jarWhat's In Bill's Head?

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2 girls in the backseat (spam of the day)

 Posted by Bill on August 16, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Aug 162010
 

Sometimes e-mail spam is the most entertaining thing I read all day. This one makes me laugh every time I reread it:

Subject: Bang 2 girls in the backseat

Having locker room problems, say goodbye to them with our improved recipe to power up
your d\ck

Backseat? Is that like "backdoor"? And if so, are both backseats being banged at the same time? I'm not sure I want an "improved recipe" that causes me to grown a second d\ck. Or do they mean I would be in the back seat of the car with 2 girls? Because that doesn't sound appealing, either—trying to fit three people in that space with room to do anything—unless the improved recipe magically shrinks us all down or makes the back seat much bigger.

And what about the "locker room problems" business? Aside from being unrelated to the subject line, are men really worried about enhancing their d\cks to impress other men in the locker room? Am I that out of touch with contemporary manhood?

Come on, marketers: think your message through a little bit.

 Inbox, Spam  No Responses »  
 

Bill Answers Reader Mail

 Posted by Bill on May 11, 2010 at 1:37 pm
May 112010
 

Q: Why have you started posting again after all this time?

A: Work it out for yourself. You’re meant to be clever.

Q: Will it last?

A: Probably not.

Q: Twitter?

A: Yeah, I know. I still think it’s mostly stupid and over-hyped but I thought I’d give it another shot and see if I can make something useful of it.

Q: Will it last?

A: Probably not.

Q: Facebook?

A: Never.

Q: Do you actually have any readers?

A: Not as far as I know. FeedBurner says I have 42,387 subscribers, which would be impressive if I hadn’t just made up the first part of this sentence.

Q: You are inconsistent in your capitalization style for post titles.

A: That is a statement, not a question, but you are correct. This inconsistency was an uncharacteristically sloppy oversight and I should standardize things. But on the other hand, sometimes different styles seem appropriate for different kinds of post. Or maybe I am just too lazy to go fix them. If you’re into pointing out this sort of thing you might like OnlineStylebooks.com, despite its unimaginative name and rudimentary site design.

Q: You didn’t say things had to be in the form of a question. You’re just answering mail. It is you who are imposing the Q/A format on things.

A: Good point.

Q: What’s your favorite joke?

A: Most jokes just aren’t that funny to me. I like to think it’s because my sense of humour is more subtle and refined. Also most stand-up comedians just annoy me. Comic strips almost never seem funny to me. I do have a favorite joke, but it doesn’t work in print. Ask me the next time you see me. Oh, wait, here’s a good joke: Sarah Palin.

Q: Do you like pickles?

A: Not really. And I only recently made
the connection between dill pickles and dill the herb. But maybe you
hadn’t thought about that either. I think “Dill the Herb” would be a
good name for a band or a comic strip, but you’d have to pronounce the h.

Q: What if they were covered in chocolate?

A: Never tried it, but maybe. Most things taste good if you cover
them in chocolate. When I searched the aether for chocolate-covered
pickles just now the fifth result was this
page with some pointless videos of chocolate-covered pickles from
the Tulsa State Fair. I lived in Tulsa for six years in my youth. The
videos did not make me want to eat chocolate-covered pickles or go to
state fairs.

Q: You should sell t-shirts and coffee mugs and stuff with your pithy sayings and funny drawings. Sorry, I mean, “Why don’t you sell t-shirts and coffee mugs and stuff with your pithy sayings and funny
drawings.”

A: We decided that it doesn’t have to be in the form of a question, remember? Anyway, you’re thinking of someone else. I’m not that kind of clever.

 

Q: Oh, yeah. That’s a different guy. But don’t you have some catchphrases?

A: Not really. I like to say “It is a poor carpenter who blames his tools.” I’ve been saying it for years, and I always thought I got it from my dad. But recently I mentioned it to him and he had no idea what I was talking about. Either way, I didn’t invent it, and it’s not a t-shirt sort of thing. I’m also fond of “every day cannot be a feast of lanterns,” but again, not t-shirty.

A Dance to the Music of Time

Oooh. Pretty Books!

Q: Have you read Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time?

A: Funny you should mention it. I read it (all four movements!) many years ago and quite enjoyed it. I was just the other day thinking I should read it again. You should go buy the complete set right now (be sure to use these four separate links so I get my Amazon kickback, because I could really use the extra 42 cents right now). Even if you don’t get around to reading them, the books will look quite nice on your bookcase.

Q: Anything else?

A: Not that I can think of. Here’s a funny YouTube video, apropos of nothing.

 Inbox, Q&A  No Responses »  
 

Coca-Cola to college students: please, steal our product

 Posted by Bill on April 27, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Apr 272010
 

The Coca-Cola company apparently has learned from the mistakes of the music industry, which alienated countless freeloading deadbeats customers when it persecuted them for stealing sharing music digitally. But Coke's down with that. In fact, it has a propaganda video that glorifies unauthorized sharing of its product:

In the video, Coke installs a modified vending machine at a college, and as students beam with love for Coke, the machine hands out various surprises, beginning with some extra bottles of product.

It's a mildly entertaining little publicity stunt, but here's what I noticed: those girls at the beginning are stealing Coke.

Remember, they ostensibly don't know it's a stunt. As far as each of them knows, she put in her quarters and a malfunctioning machine gave her more bottles than she paid for. But does she take the one drink she's entitled to and call the vending machine company to alert them to the problem? Of course not. Even though she knows it's wrong, she takes the "free" drinks and "shares" them with everyone around.

It's not surprising that she would behave this way, but it is surprising that Coca-Cola would look so approvingly upon the behavior. Would they have used the footage in their video if she and her pals had put in 50 cents and then knocked the machine over and looted it? The outcome is the same either way. Is it better morally to have stolen "passively"?

It reminds me of an incident that occurred while I was in college. Someone made a mistake one day when refilling the ATM on campus, and as a result the machine was handing out $20s when it should have been dispensing $5s or $10s (that was back when you could still get $5s and $10s from a cash machine). It's the same scenario: students, through no fault of their own, received more than they were entitled to from a machine. Did the bank take the security camera footage and make a feel-good YouTube video from it? Nope: there was no YouTube back then. So instead, they issued a very stern statement about how it was "wrong" to take money you weren't entitled to. Then they used their transaction records to track down all the people who had made off with free money, and made them give it back, under threat of prosecution.

If only we had had the YouTube back then, maybe it all could have worked out differently: we could have kept our free money and sent the video to all our friends.

 Advertising, Culture, Inbox, Satire  No Responses »  
 

Bill Answers Reader Mail

 Posted by Bill on February 22, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Feb 222007
 

Q: Why haven’t you written anything in the past 6 months?

A: I haven’t had anything to say, or I haven’t felt like it, or I’ve been busy with other things. I’m prone to taking up and abandoning projects: get used to it.

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Words and images copyright by Bill except as noted otherwise. All rights reserved. Additional credits