What are you going to buy today?

Don't you just love the internet?

I've tied myself to this medium for a couple of reasons after losing my day job, most specifically because of the opportunities I have been able to find here.  From job interviews to how to dress for job interviews to where to buy what you need to buy to wear on job interviews - well, that could go on forever if I allowed it.

The biggest challenge is to separate hyperbole from fact.  For instance, one of my early "interviews" was for a company which wooed me into coming in, telling me that my qualifications were ideally suited for an opportunity which would only be open for a short time and that I needed to come in at my earliest convenience at a scheduled time for further consideration.  I rushed over (actually it was a few days later), arriving early enough to score a Geocache and to watch as several other people who were ideally suited for an opportunity which would only be open for a short time.  It wound up being a mass indoctrination where about 15 of us sat in a room and were given a ninety minute presentation about some insurance company I have never heard of attempting to entice me into giving up six and a half days a week cold call selling life insurance.

I obtained several 'gems' from that meeting - For one was the image of a young woman at the reception desk of the insurance company lip synching to Beatles songs which were popular when her mother wasn't even a gleam in the eye of her grandmother.  I borrowed the line and put it into a book I was writing at the time.  I also found out that the life insurance company I had never heard about before was under the corporate umbrella of a larger company which seemed to specialize in recruiting agents for other life insurance companies I had never heard of before.

The parent company actually sent me more, similarly worded letters from some of those other unheard of companies for at least a month and a half afterwards.  I would almost term it as persistence of advertising.  It seems to happen a lot on the web, especially when the web is being used as a form of recreation.

The other half and I have a teenager in the house who is about to graduate from High School.  Something the boy needs is transportation so that he can get a job and/or the Junior College less than 5 miles down the road.  I spent some time on a website (Cars.com) to see what was available at a moderate price (less than $2,000) to get him back and forth.  The day after I made my initial search, I started seeing advertisements from that website while I was on Facebook or getting roundly beaten on Words With Friends, as well as on a few other places where I would not have thought of seeing such well-placed ads.

Now, I'm not ignorant as to how those ads got there, nor am I going to begrudge Facebook or Words... or Yahoo their revenue for providing my entertainment.  In fact, I find it somewhat amusing.  We ended up retiring the other half's car, gave it a mechanical going over and passing it on to the teenager, doing so after finding a sweetheart deal from a local dealer - and I'll be darned if ads for similar cars didn't start showing up on my recreational pages almost immediately.  Same goes for a pedal-powered piece of machinery I'm contemplating purchasing to add to the fleet... and of course the manufacturer of the computer I'm using wanted me to update almost from the moment I put the thing into use more than three years ago.

Oh well... people gotta live, somehow.

On the other hand, I may just find the pervasiveness useful to my own evil plans some day.  And no, that does not include my cold calling you to sell you life insurance.  Besides, I'm getting ads from some fellow who's telling me how to avoid cold calling because cold calling sucks.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell  

Keeping Abreast of Developments

"Americans have this obsession with bosoms..." or so stated Terry Thomas' character in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  Fifty years later and it's true.

Take the announcement the other day from Angelina Jolie about her recent surgery.  Please.  (Sorry, my inner Henny Youngman is showing.)  I could almost hear a collective gasp from Tomb Raider fans who worked themselves into a frenzy over the loss of Angelina's biggest assets.  I mention Tomb Raider fans in particular because of my son's fascination with the movie which came out at about the same time he started to reach puberty.  Yes, there was lots of action with the gun play, but he was just as mesmerized by Ms. Jolie's physical attributes.... although he still won't admit it.

Yes, I recall being that age and yes, I was just as guilty about wanting to know more about what was behind those bits of clothing women wore around the upper parts of their bodies.  Considerable time was spent in Junior High speculating about whether the girls we saw budding out at the time were doing so naturally or if they were augmented with products from Kimberly-Clark.

Then I grew up and matured (Bonds mature, men don't.  ed) came to the realization that many women see their breasts as symbolic of their womanhood, even to the point where some would rather keep their breasts and risk being killed from a cancer they could contract because they are genetically predisposed to contract than to take the lifesaving step of having them removed.  I applaud Ms. Jolie for her foresight and her willingness to publicly reveal the step she took.

I personally know a few women who have done the same thing.  My friend Barbara in Maryland did it nearly 20 years ago.  My former mother-in-law did the same.  So did my wife.  It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to do something that can possibly allow you to live longer - with a certain amount of Lara Croft bravery mixed in there to boot.
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So, shifting to this morning, I had a meeting with a woman about a business matter and came away with a certain amount of amusement with what I will term as a social 'tic' she displayed.  She was wearing a modestly low-cut shirt which she occasionally tugged at while we were talking.  She is not the only woman I noted tugging on her low-cut shirt/blouse/dress in the past few years/months/weeks.  I am sensing a contradiction.  On one hand, fashion dictates low cut shirts/blouses/dresses - on another, I sense that the tugging is an unconscious effort on the part of the women who do it to prevent exposure.

I mentioned the tic to my better half and she pointed out that back in the day, she would constantly tug down on the short skirts she was compelled to wear in school.  I had almost forgotten about the dress codes we once had and the protest which finally led to the schools allowing girls to wear pants of some sort in lieu of dresses and skirts.

During the conversation with my dear wife, it suddenly hit me that I was wearing a kilt when we ventured down to the local Renaissance Festival last weekend and that I came to the realization while I was out there that if I sat down in the wrong way, I would be exposing myself in a manner not appropriate to the situation.  (Note that a kilt worn with underwear is actually a skirt.)  So yes, I found myself tugging down, protecting my hangy down parts when I was out and about.

Vanity, or should I say modesty is not merely a trait limited to the female of the species.

Be Seeing You!
(Properly attired; unless you're a naturist, I suppose)

bdharrell

Now a big hit in Russia!

God bless Blogspot.  Not only do they allow me the opportunity to vent my spleen and make occasional plugs for my writing efforts, but they also provide me with statistics regarding who takes the time to read my ramblings.

Maybe you're here by mistake - I have no idea.

Regardless, I peeked at my statistics this morning and found that I've gotten just as many hits from Russia as I have from the United States.

So what's the deal?

Back in the days when I was on the radio, some of the places where I worked made a big deal out of their "ratings" - how much audience did they pull over a given period of time.  It was important to the stations because they would be able to charge more money for the advertisements they would sell if they were getting a larger portion of the audience.  Well, I'm not in radio any longer and despite the fact that Blogspot offers me an opportunity to add advertising to my little personal space, I'm not really concerned about how big my numbers are.

Honestly, it's really a source of amusement.

So far this year, I've also gotten hits from Germany, Indonesia, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and a few other countries.  Oh - and China, too!  Missing from my collection: Canada.  I thought for sure that my rant about the Canadianization of America would draw at least one hit from an overly polite frostback.  Anyone from Central America or South America (Mexico, you're more than welcome at my blog - Uruguay, just a few keystrokes is all I ask!  No one from Africa, either.  South Africa?  C'mon... I have a friend with South African ancestry!  When will Australia step up to the plate?  I'm still waiting for Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands.  When will some of the smaller countries step to the plate?  Andorra?  Grenada?  Grand Fenwick?

All in all, I am flattered.  Okay, maybe the larger portion of those hits from other countries (or for that matter from this country) are hits from people who have passed by accidentally.  I do it, too - I'll read a random blog now and then after hitting a "NEXT" button.  An innocent diversion?  Maybe I've gone and flattered some other blogger.  Ain't this fun?
*****
Two Facebook items caught my attention last night - one was an advertisement for Audi featuring "The two Spocks" as I'll call them.  I got into a brief conversation about Star Trek fans with a woman who is married to one.  I am starting to develop a story about a die-hard fan who meets someone remotely connected to the franchise.  It's starting to be a lot of fun.
The other item was an obituary which appeared in a major newspaper for a woman from Mississippi.  I have not had so much fun reading an obituary in quite some time and am now wondering if there would be a market for that type of obituary.  I might start working on my own on a similar vein and instruct my survivors to insert some vital data and publish it just as written when I finally get shot by that jealous lover.  I'll give it a month or two to rattle around in my head, and then maybe offer it on my commercial web site:  bdharrell.com

be seeing you!

bdharrell

The Canadianization of America!

Maybe you hadn't noticed it yet, but there's a growing problem in this country.

We are being invaded.

From Canada.

Oh, sure, you say... those polite people from the cold north are as harmless as a kitten.  There is no threat - HAH!

I used to think that way, too, until I started to read some of the labels on the food products I eat.  I'll have you know that I've avoided "Canadian Bacon" for years - for years, mind you, preferring instead to eat American bacon grown on American farms.

I thought I was safe, until the other day when I chanced a glance at the box of frozen waffles I was eating.  PRODUCT OF CANADA read the fine print, almost indistinguishable on the package.

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That's how the rant would start.

The premise is ridiculous.  That's all there is to it.  It's no more ridiculous than other rants I have seen recently on Facebook and otherwise.  I read a forwarded post the other day from someone telling me to boycott Pepsi products because they left out the words "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance printed on a Pepsi can.  There was a fair amount of self-righteous indignation in the post - a post I had seen previously - attacking Coca Cola for the exact same crime!

I went snooping at Snopes.com and found that the words "under God" were omitted from a can of Dr. Pepper at one time.  But the good people at Dr. Pepper omitted 26 other words from the Pledge, as well.  The can read "One Nation... Indivisible".

That's it.  Just three words.  There are (by my count) 31 word in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Let me offer three more words:  Makes No Sense.

Years ago - before Facebook and before the internet, I recall people passing around information defaming Proctor and Gamble because of their moon and stars trademark.  The people passing this information were up in arms because it "proved" that P&G was in league with Satan or similar nonsense.  I don't know if they still do, but at one time Proctor and Gamble was spending a considerable sum of money refuting the rumors and legally going after people and organizations which insisted on continuing those rumors.

The problem these days is that misinformation now spreads at the speed of light.

It spreads a bit faster when there's a note of indignation connected with that misinformation.  "How Dare Coke or Pepsi leave off the words 'Under God' from appearing on their soda cans!"

Know what I mean, Vern?

*****

For the record, if you re-arrange the letters of PEPSI COLA, it makes the word EPISCOPAL - as in the EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE CENTER at the William Cooper PROCTOR farm south of London, Ohio on Ohio Route 37.  Yep... same Proctor as with Gamble.  My understanding is that the farm was donated to the Episcopal Church on Mr. Proctor's passing.  A neat little tie-in, eh?


Be Seeing You!

bdharrell