Analtech wants public input on whether they should rename the company

What’s in a name?

We’ve talked with a few experts in the field of marketing, branding, etc. and here’s the general consensus:
   1. Analtech is a brand name known and trusted by the academic and science communities worldwide
   2. Under normal circumstances, such a branding after nearly 50 years would be considered a huge success
   3. Analtech faces certain challenges because of the "juvenile" humor that has developed in the past few decades and current web filters that may block the company name

What do you think?

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Please click here for a simple, two question survey.

Uranustech?

For the record: Fluke has never even thought about it and they are doing just fine.

Taco Bell goes retro with “Where’s the beef?” defense

Want to know when you’ve lost the PR battle? When you get headlines like this:

Taco Bell Defends Beef, Calls Suit ‘Bogus’

Taco Bell’s real problem is that this lawsuit doesn’t sound that outlandish. It just confirms a lot of people’s secret suspicions – whether true or not. Taco Bell’s brand promise is cheap, pseudo-Mexican-themed food. Nobody looks at them and thinks, “Good food.” They think, “Inexpensive, filling and no I don’t really want to know what’s in it.” Even the company’s defense plays into this. Chihuahua HQ has put out a press release saying,

Our seasoned beef recipe contains 88% quality USDA-inspected beef and 12% seasonings, spices, water and other ingredients that provide taste, texture and moisture.

“88% of our meat is actually meat. No, really.” You’re not going to win a lot of hearts and minds with that one guys.

What the company needs to do is go with this instead of fighting it. How about an ad campaign with a Lenten theme – “Taco Bell, perfect for meatless Fridays.” Or, “Taco Bell – Fast food for vegetarians.”

I’m moderate as Heck! Signs proposed for the Rally to Restore Sanity

 

Huffington Post is inviting readers to create the sign they want to see at the Rally. Here’s a few of my faves:

Rhode Island outraged by use of Massachusetts to illustrate size of oil spill

Rhode Island, perhaps because it is the smallest state in the union, is the preferred media reference when describing the size of something. This works well for both the factual and the fantastical.

The following are just from news stories in the past week:

• Charles Mix County covers an area about two-thirds the size of Rhode Island and about half the size of Delaware,
• The Basque Country, a region the size of Rhode Island, straddles the border of Spain and France. It’s historically comprised of seven provinces
• Complete with hand-dial radio and a trunk the size of Rhode Island,
• We’ve literally lost an area the size of Rhode Island off our coast," said Jindal.

The ice sheets that peel off of Antarctica all seem mathematically related to the Ocean State. The most recent: An Ice Shelf the Size of Rhode Island Breaks Up in Just 24 Hours

For those of you keeping track at home, Rhode Island is either 1000 square miles in size (just measuring the land part) or 1,500 sq. mi. if you include Narragansett Bay as well. Now comes the horrific news that MASSACHUSETTS!!! of all places is being used as a measure.

They say the dead zone is roughly the size of Massachusetts, or at least 7,722 square miles. The largest ever measured was just over 8,000 square miles in 2001.

Rhode Island has always had a chip on its shoulder about Massachusetts. My home state was literally founded by Bay State castoffs (cast off because they were in favor of things like religious tolerance, I might add). So this trend has to be stopped in its tracks. NOW. So Mr. Reporter, lets try again. It is nearly EIGHT TIMES THE SIZE OF RHODE ISLAND!!! Now, isn’t that more impressive?

From my diary: How I survived the iPad launch

Friday, April 2

6:30 AM Wake up and realize that in addition to not being one of the industry/media insiders who got an early iPad, now I am also not one of the great masses who have an iPad. Consider suicide. Opt for brushing teeth.

7:00 Think that if I had an iPad I would probably whack it against my head out of frustration over trying to wake 13-year-old son. Realize I have saved myself $499 + shipping.

7:09 Wonder if iPad can make coffee. Or toast. Or maybe walk the dog.

7:15 Looking at Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal old school! Spill bad coffee and wipe some of it up with Journal Op-Ed pages. Let’s see the iPad do that! (And pleased to find a new use for WSJ Op-Ed pages now that dog is house broken.)

7:30 – 9 AM Manage to shower and dress without use of iPad. Did miss some shaving cream behind ear. Blame lack of an iPad.

9:02 Check twitter. Friend (@JPMello) is posting regular updates of his iPad’s delivery via UPS tracking. Consider referring him to a therapist, again.

9:15 Driving down town & am shocked by the amount of traffic on the streets. Figured iPad Friday would be akin to Super Bowl Sunday. Am wrong. Realized that if I’d had an iPad I wouldn’t have made this mistake.

9:30 Get out of car only to realize not having an iPad makes me feel underdressed. Wait, I’m wrong. It’s my lack of pants. If I had an iPad maybe people would stare at that and not my Hello Kitty underwear. (They were a gift from my wife, I’ll have you know!)

9:32 Put on spare pair of pants kept in back seat of car. Experience is a cruel teacher.

9:35 AM – 11:30 PM Attend Anime Boston. It’s the largest collection of nerds in the Northeast this weekend and NONE OF THEM has an iPad. Not a single conversation all day refers to the iPad. And, in a crowd that features people dressed as robots, ninjas, obscure Japanese commercial logos, Flo from the Progressive ads and several very large men in Sailor Moon costumes (they really, really need to shave their legs) – NO ONE IS DRESSED AS AN iPAD! Thanks to this insight I call up my bookie and bet all my money that Steve Jobs will be out of a job by Monday. So to bed, secure in the knowledge that I am soon to be a millionaire.

 

Originally published at EmediaVitals

Robin Hood nabbed for ID theft and more

Why aren’t you reading The Obscure Store and Reading Room? It’s where all the best stories can be found. Here are three recent ones:

• Man with real name of Robin Hood charged with identity theft

• Man named Ronald McDonald arrested for marijuana possession

• Man beaten with high-heel during Waffle House Valentine’s date

Man has had a hard time.

My kind of law firm

 

I don’t know who these people are or whether or not they’re any good but their ads are GENIUS!

 

Aussies hopping mad about kangaroo-flavored chips

The Aussies are not, by and large, nervous nellies. They can’t really afford to be. That’s what living with the all those wild fires, droughts, rampant New Zealanders and 10 of the most lethal animals on the planet will do for you. However, if you really need to make an Ozlander squirm sell a potato chip flavored like a kangaroo or emu.

Complaints to Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau said the “BBQ Coat of Arms” chips were degrading for native wildlife and sent the wrong message to Australian children, reported the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. “It implies that it is perfectly OK to kill kangaroos and emus just for fun!” said one complaint.

Apparently the writer has never read the history of Australia. Pointlessly killing kangaroos is to the land Down Under what pointlessly killing buffalo is to the US.

BTW, I have eaten oddly flavored potato chips in France, the UK and Japan and no matter what they claim to be seasoned with they taste like either BBQ or salt & vinegar. That’s it. Worcestershire sauce flavored? BBQ. And not a very good one. Curry? Salt and vinegar.

*Thanks to Erik B. for the headline!

Pumpkin pies follow Eggos on to endangered foods list

It looks like a grim winter for Americans who will now have to get through the coldest months without two of their favorite food groups.

Nestle, which owns the Libby’s brand of pumpkin pie and announced this week that heavy rain has hurt its pumpkin farms in Morton, Ill., to the point that it will not pack any more pumpkins this year.

And it’s not just our poor underprivileged industrial food producers being hurt by this. In case anyone cares, there are reports that mere people are also being effected.

“Our calculations indicate that we may deplete our inventory of canned Libby’s pumpkin as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday,” said Paul Bakus, vice president and general manager of Nestle Baking.

Damn. Just as I was poised to get rich off my pumpkin pie with Eggo crust recipe. Maybe next year.

UPDATE

I agree with Mister Impatient’s comment (below) and sense an attempt to drive up the price in both the pumpkin and Eggo markets by creating a fictitious shortage. As evidence I offer this picture of shelves at my local supermarket overflowing with Eggos!

I CALL SHENANIGANS!!!

They report, you decide – because they can’t make up their mind

MSNBC: Ethics Committee clears Sen. Burris (D-Ill.) of wrongdoing over appointment

Washington Post:  Senate ethics committee admonishes Burris

OK, all those of you who find the idea of a Senate ethics committee hysterical signal by saying “aye.” The motion passes by a vote of 270,000,000 to 100.

Store owners shoot congenial, hairy beer customer

Owners of the Marketplace Foods in Hayward, Wis., decided to call in the law when a 125-pound male entered the store and, without bothering anyone, walked to the beer cooler and sat down. The customer then waited patiently for an hour. To this reporter’s eyes it seems clear he was waiting for a staff member to locate his preferred brand, but the brains at the store didn’t feel that way. Acting on the gross and unfair prejudice that because said customer was a black bear and therefore must be a threat (Why must we fear what we don’t understand?) managers called  officials from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources who tranquilized and removed the customer.

This kind of treatment should be reserved solely for executives from Bear-Stearns. (sorry. I had to do it.)

In case you think I am misreading this incident, remember that EYEWITNESSES “say the bear seemed content to sit in the cooler — and they note that he didn’t drink any of the beer.” (emphasis added)

Given the number of breweries which have used bears to sell their beer without recompense (gallery below), I hope they will hire a sympathetic law firm to come to the defense of this cruel victim of bad customer service.

As the astute songwriter Steven Fromholz noted in his song Bears (ably performed here by one Mr. Lyle Lovett):

Some folks say there ain’t no bears in Arkansas
Some folks never seen a bear at all
Some folks say that bears go around eating babies raw
Some folks got a bear across the hall

Some folks say that bears go around smelling bad
Others say that a bear is honey sweet
Some folks say this bear’s the best I ever had
Some folks got a bear beneath their feet

Some folks drive the bears out of the wilderness
Some to see a bear would pay a fee
Me I just bear up to my bewildered best
And some folks even see the bear in me

So meet a bear and take him out to lunch with you
And even though your friends may stop and stare
Just remember that’s a bear there in the bunch with you
And they just don’t come no better than a bear

 

   

 

 

BitterlyBooks does great catty reviews of non-fiction books

I have no idea who is writing BittlerlyBooks but he/she/it/they are geniuses (or a genius).

Here’s just a few great quotes

From the review of The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Second Life: Making Money in the Metaverse by Daniel Terdiman:

… there is detailed information on other opportunities in the adult services industry including sex fasion, sex clubs, sex animations, and sex furniture. For example, "escorts can earn from US$3 to US$14 in an hour. Again, over time, and with volume, it adds up pretty quickly"(p.17), or you can sell "a wide range of penises and vaginas in various sizes and levels of functionality and complexity"(p.165), and "there’s also fashion for all kinds of specific subcommunities, like furries"(p.16). Other chapters cover topics such land sales and construction, but they don’t have phrases like "people whose job it is to manage the escorts,"(p.166) which is nicest way of writing "pimps"(p.167) that I have ever seen.

From the review of Healing with Crystals by Pamela Chase and Jonathan Pawlik:

What is in this book: Instructions for owning and operating crystals, which are actually a lot like housepets. Pets that occasionally ask to be buried in dirt. "Crystals like to be stored in sunlight and open spaces. They like to be used and enjoyed"(p.34). You can ask your crystal questions about where it would be most comfortable: "Would you like to be on the window sill? By the bed? Etc."(p.51) and question it about its uses: "Shall I place you in my receiving hand, on my heart, on my third eye?"(p.51).

From the review of Game Widow by Wendy Kays

Would you recommend this book to widows of U.S. servicemen who were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan? Without reservation. Ms. Kays’ description of a game widow as “a woman whose husband might as well be dead to her because he is constantly engaged with video games”(p.xii) is as respectful to their situation as it is similar. The fact that Ms. Kays’ not-dead husband has earned a living by sensationalizing the ongoing sacrifices made by the United States Armed Forces and marketing it as entertainment can only add another layer of empathy and understanding.

I could quote more but I’m pretty sure I’ve already run afoul of the fair use rules.

My only complaints:

1. New reviews are only published on the 1st and 15th of each month. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO IN THE MEANTIME???
2. Needs more hardcore business books. If you can stay awake through them business books are comedy gold.

Congress rebukes Kanye, Serena and that guy who flipped me off in traffic

If this were The Onion there would be a story here that I wouldn’t read because I’m mostly about the headlines with The Onion.

The least comprehensible start of a news story – ever?

Orders placed with U.S. factories rose less than forecast in July, restrained by a decline in non-durable goods such as oil and food that masked a jump in demand for new equipment that was larger than previously estimated.

This is the journalistic version of TMI. You can’t get it all in the lede and it will only hurt if you try.

I will try to translate what I think was meant: The orders for stuff from US factories didn’t hit the July estimate because of a decline in non-durable goods like food and oil. That’s as much sense as I can get out of this and even that sense is dubious. Is it the production, demand or sales which declined? Whichever one allegedly masked a larger-than-expected increase in demand for new equipment. How do you mask a jump? Is there some stealth technology for statistics that masks an increase? Or maybe some masking agent such as is used by athletes wishing to hide steroid consumption?

If the purpose of the lede is to get me to read the rest of the story this one just got me to reach for the ibuprofen.

Fight at health-care forum leaves anti-reform protester with big medical bills

Kenneth Gladney, 38, of St. Louis, claims he was injured when union members attacked the politically conservative Gladney last Friday. The union denies says this and says Gladney started it. Both sides are preparing the traditional “I’m made of rubber, your made of glue defense.” Whoever’s fault it was, the melee ended in six arrests. It was one of several at meetings around the country held to discuss ideas to reform the nation’s costly health care system.

“Gladney is accepting donations toward his medical expenses. Gladney told reporters he was laid off recently and has no health insurance.”

Sadly the article doesn’t mention if anyone asked Gladney “Oh, irony where is thy sting?”

 

Cry Havoc and release the Penguins.