Collateral Damage

Apparently the hot idea in niche alcohol sales is to put your product into a package that looks like a weapon of personal destruction.

The tequila company Hijos de Villa offers both a sidearm and a long-gun.

There’s also a choice vodka in two different iconic machine guns: The Tommy or the AK-47. Or it you want to better target your vodka, there’s also a Sniper version.

Sadly you have far fewer choices if you don’t drink the hard stuff. Wine drinkers are all liberals, right? So the best you can do is a bottle opener for your Beaujolais. And beer drinkers don’t even get that. Yep, despite its claims to be the Silver Bullet — there’s nothing from Coors (or any other brewer I could find) that had any trace of verisimilitude on the topic.

Of course you can put whatever substance you want in one of these flasks. You have a choice of one that looks like a pistol or looks like it saved you from a pistol. (If we ever become really good friends I’ll tell you the story of why I drove a bayonet through a silver flask.)

And fear not if your taste for mood altering substances run to something less potable:

Well, I think you just might do it. That’s the entire business model (and it’s not a bad one) behind a company called Flogos. Their self-named product is essential a lighter-than-air gel that gets formed into a particular shape and then released into the wind.

The company says that the things can last an hour or so depending on wind conditions. Unfortunately they have maxed out at 48 inches in size right now (although they claim to have a six-footer in the works) so it’s a very, very small cloud. They also say they are working on making colors other than white.

My only problem with this venture — other than the fact that I didn’t think it up — is a disturbing idea that these may have been around since roughly October 27th, 312 AD. The video below shows a plausible explanation for the behavior of my namesake, the entirely too-cynical emperor Constantine I, prior to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on October 28th, 312 AD.

It is commonly stated that on the evening of October 27, with the armies preparing for battle, Constantine had a vision which lead him to fight under the protection of the Christian God. The details of that vision, however, differ between the sources reporting it. It is believed that the sign of the cross appeared and Constantine heard “In this sign, you shall conquer” in Greek.

Now that’s branding.

I am fleeing the cold weather and the blogosphere for a week, so you’ll have to get your snarky commentary elsewhere for a while.

A few thoughts for the road:

1. Is Hillary copying the Giuliani playbook? Hil’s attitude of we’ll win one of these days seems very reminiscent of Rudy’s.
2. Greenspan says we’re on the edge of a recession. Sorry Alan but we passed that a while ago. An attitude only a rich man could have.
3. Condi & Zinni for Veeps? Collateral Damage Sr. says McCain will opt for the best piano player on either side while Obama picks the General to strengthen his flank. Both picks make sense which is why I doubt they will come to pass.
4. Anybody can have a bad century: Pitchers and catchers reported to spring training meaning this is officially the centennial season of Cub ineptitude. (CD Sr. also said the Cubs have a chance this year. Whaddya expect from a Senators fan?)

Image via TheRevC.com

From QuestionTheDogma

NOW ALL WE NEED ARE SOME RAINING CATS.

“A 65-pound Labrador retriever, without benefit of an airplane or parachute, flew from the top of an airport parking deck six stories down - and survived.”

Speaking of Dogma …. Westminster Kennel Show is on tonight. My money is on the Bulldog (either French or English), Mrs. CollateralDamage says the dachsund is a mortal lock. Given that this is based on our favorite breeds, these predictions are definitely better than my Pats over the Giants prediction.

BTW, Go here to see Reebok’s never-will-air ad celebrating the 19-0 Pats.

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, officials said Wednesday. In a side-effect, the cloned cats glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet beams.

Just the thing to take to your next rave.

UPDATE: Derek writes in to remind me that the glow in the dark cat is probably a follow up to an earlier innovation: The fearless mouse.

Japanese scientists say they’ve used genetic engineering to create mice that show no fear of felines, a development that may shed new light on mammal behavior and the nature of fear itself.

Another way to describe a mouse that isn’t afraid of cats: Dead.

(Cross posted from Business & Networking)

Sometimes you just have to meet F2F and I did some of that last night at the Boston Blogger Dinner sponsored by EMC and hosted by Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang.

In addition to getting to chat with Jeremiah, I had a great time talking to Peter Kim, Doc & Joyce Searles, Chris Brogan, Beth Kanter, Alyssa Boehm and a bunch of other folks who didn’t have cards with them! There were about 100 people there and it was packed. It was so crowded that I couldn’t even get across the room to meet Scott Monty — who I am a big fan of. Next time. Peter wants to make these more regular and I do, too.

Tinkers to Evers to what’s the chance
a hundred seasons could come and go
so fast no one would celebrate
even one of them

Next year isn’t a mantra
it’s an elegy for wasted time
wasted efforts wasted hopes
and for all those losses
nothing is really lost
no one died from
the heartbreak no child went
hungry because Ernie Banks
never got his pennant

Instead we grew up
with our hopes either stunted
or getting ever larger
believing tomorrow will always
hold what today never can

Still going down to that damn
old park because we take defeat
as our due and know the team’s
reach never exceeds our grasp

Their wish — like our dreams — is
not of brazen prizes and spoiling
success but noon on a July day
when the breeze off the lake
might be just a little bit cool

Three Fingers Brown someone
asked you once if you could
have pitched better with all five
I’ll never know, you said
So what’s it like
to win it all?

(originally published in Eleysian Fields Quarterly)

“To know for sure,
I’d have to throw with a normal hand,
and I’ve never tried it.”
– Mordechai Centennial “Three Fingers” Brown
Career
Win-Loss: 239-130
ERA: 2.06
Strikeouts: 1,375

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

In the news on Tuesday:

Wholesale prices fell in August by the largest amount in 10 months, reflecting a plunge in the price of gasoline and other energy products and the fourth straight month of falling food costs.

And then Wednesday

Stocks rose moderately Wednesday as Wall Street extended its rally a day after the Federal Reserve’s big interest rate cut.

Any reporter writing on inflation should be required to go down to the local supermarket and talk to shoppers. As the food-shopper-in-chief for the Collateral Damage clan, I KNOW that inflation is a problem and have known for a while. Around here milk is now running $4 a gallon when it’s not on sale. Frozen vegetables — store brand — up about $.20 per package in the last couple of months. I believe it should be part of every Fed chairman’s job that he do his own grocery shopping.

If any of you are there, please say hi. I’ll be the only one there with the name Constantine von Hoffman on his name tag. I promise. Maybe updates later today.

There’s nothing like getting laid off to really build your self-esteem. Trust me, I know. Recently even, like for the second time in three years. Yep. At the end of the month I will be a former Sr. Reporter for Brandweek. (”He’s not dead. He’s pinin’ for the fjords.”) Budget cuts came down from on high and I went down with them. It’s the nature of the biz. So if you or someone you know has need of a smart & sometimes funny writer/editor/reporter/analyst/blogger/nice guy, send ‘em my way. If you’re curious about my professional background, check out my web site, www.areporter.com.

=30=

A pair of gay flamingos have adopted an abandoned chick, becoming parents after being together for six years.

Do they have little plastic people lawn ornaments?

“It’s just too tough,” he said.

Judge Karen Henderson dissented, writing that the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia because it is not a state.

Well, that explains why President Bush doesn’t see a need to seperate church and state — he thinks he’s living in a Constitution-free zone.

I don’t care. I’m still in favor of arming bears.

I’m off to warmer climes for a week. Postings will be even more sporadic than usual over the next nine days.