I know this is a social revolution, and that all things will ultimately equalize as the proverbial water (and here I refer to Facebook status updates) finds its own level. But in the meantime I’m noticing that a lot of “twitter is really twaddle”. There, I said it. Are these people searching for their 15 minutes of fame in some lame ass mental meanderings that no one gives a fat rat’s ass about? Because that’s just sad. I urge you to think before putting finger to keyboard – because thinking is something you do in your mind and every thought does NOT have to be shared. Life is short and it seems a shame to waste valuable time in reading that my neighbor’s orange juice was slightly acidic this morning. Or that he’s still feeling sweaty from his morning run. Why, why must we be inflicted with these inanities? And frankly, I don’t even want to read about celebrity flop sweat much less the flop sweat of any of the rest of you! Let’s set some limits here!

Ironically, once my decision was made and I went through the sign up procedure I found that Facebook wasn’t for everyone. I never received confirmation, and was never able to enter the system. After e-mailing them and trying again (even with a different address) and e-mailing them yet again I have come to the conclusion that big brother really is watching – and he doesn’t want me in Facebook. I have to admit – this time he probably made the right decision. So don’t try to find me there – apparently I’ve been rejected by Facebook. Don’t feel too bad – it could be worse. Had things gone differently I could be twittering about the sounds my stomach is making since it’s almost time for lunch – and then I could compare them to a small 5-speed truck lurching up a steep incline…

Now everyone is up in arms about his lame Microsoft ad with Jerry Seinfeld. “How can he expect to energize today’s youth with a paunchy, yesterday icon that appealed to their parents?” First of all – ouch! Knocking Seinfeld is just wrong. But that aside – they’re railing at a pointless, wandering ad that shows Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld shoe shopping. Sound stupid – yes. But so what. Bogusky did it so it will probably win the Cannes Lion next year. And he’ll probably make a billion dollars selling whatever shoes they feature in that ad. Because that’s how it goes for Bogusky. And no one seems to care that he uses a damn Mac himself!

Remember when he first brought back that creepy Burger King icon? People were actually having nightmares and driving out of their way to avoid even passing Burger King. And now he’s lauded as the genius who’s “unlikely icon has since done everything from date reality-TV pinup Brooke Burke to appear in his own Xbox video game that has sold 3.5 million copies.” The guy can’t miss. Even when he publicly confesses that he “once farted on production for a gap spot.” OK that confession was made in Denver so I guess it wasn’t “officially” public. But face it – the guy farts Chanel! Or should I say Drakkar Dynamik?

And don’t getting me started on bringing Orville Redenbacher back from the dead – to sell a food item no less. But did that hurt our fair haired boy – you guessed it! In fact employees have been heard to liken him to Jesus and to claim “I was walking by the kitchen in the office. There was, like, this halo over him.” Maybe that’s it. At least that would explain it.

But you see my point here. Don’t waste your time or effort. He’s brilliant and can do no wrong. Go ahead – say that again, three times fast. He’s brilliant and… Come on, don’t be bitter – you might as well face it now before the next ridiculous, lame, irrelevant ad wins him his own TV show and makes him richer than Gates… It’s only a matter of time.

It becomes clear, almost immediately, that she is talking to the Pepto Bismol “help desk” about Rex’s problem of over indulgence. She lists an abundance of edible evils, at the root of the problem, and ends with dog treats, of course. The guy on the other end of the line proceeds to explain that Pepto does not treat animals – because he, as does the viewer, believes that her poor dog Rex has a tummy ache.

But no, ha ha, this is when the camera pulls back to reveal a tummy clutching man lying on the nearby couch as our protagonist explains that her dog’s name is Charlie and hopeless glutton Rex is her husband. Cute. Good for a quick chuckle. But at what price Pepto?

Why on earth would you spend good money to tell the whole world that you don’t treat animals when you absolutely do treat them? My vet prescribes a good dose of Pepto for the gastrointestinal tribulations of all three of my dogs. In fact my dogs take Pepto far more often than their humans. Where are your marketing people? Seems like they’re having some trouble thinking outside the litter box (ok that was a cheap shot).

Hey Pepto – give us a shot at marketing your pink tablets to pet owners. But you’ll have to retire that tv spot or risk confusing a burgeoning segment of your audience.

Arnold created the campaign.

Via Ad Week

Zuula is a meta search, which isn’t anything new because others like Dogpile and Mamma have been around a while. Some might call it an aggregator, but technically it’s not, because it provides results from each search engine separately. And that’s what I really like about it. Unlike Dogpile that mashes all the results from various sources together on one page, Zuula presents the results in tabbed format. So I can just click on each of the tabs and get the results I need. And it does blogs, video, images, news and jobs as well as web. To me the advantage of Zuula’s tabs vs Dogpile’s mashup is that I can quickly discern potential volume and reach because at a glance I can tell if Google results are heavier than MSN or vice versa.

Other things I like are:

• It keeps a history of my recent searches which helps with tracking.
• All ads are pushed to the right to clearly distinguish paid results from organic. It doesn’t have the sponsored in-line results like most aggregators.
• If you are looking for images, the image search lets you see thumbnails directly from the image searches on Google, Yahoo, Live, Photobucket, Picasa, Flickr and more.
• It is simple, and I really like the interface.

And most of all….tonight I did in 15 minutes what it use to take me 90 minutes to do. Which rocks!

The only downside is Zuula is harder to type than Google.

Via Dear Jane Sample

Let me get this right…we Americans get less than other workers abroad…we leave days on the table…AND we feel guilty when we do take vacation. Pretty pathetic huh? But that’s the latest according to a survey commissioned by Expedia.com. Yet as I sit here in my kitchen writing this blog, I find myself one of these sad statistics. See right now I should have been aboard a cruise ship enroute to the Bahamas, but…and isn’t there always…there was work and…

In all fairness, probably a bigger reason for my last minute vacation cancellation had to do with the growing fear and angst I saw in my husband’s eyes at the thought of spending 5 days on a ship with our two teenage daughters after a track record of family vacation fiascos. I’m one of those Mom’s that seems to conveniently forget the past experience of “being trapped in the car or plane, the fighting, screaming, whining, complaining” when I think about the years’ vacation plan. And he remembers them vividly. Well the reality didn’t quite work out like the “Norman Rockwell” vision in my head. So here I sit writing a blog post after a long day of work.

Oh well. I guess this is why I tell my kids that they need to really love what they do for a living cuz they are going to be doing it a lot. And luckily I do.