The New and Improved Advertising Extravaganza!

I've got four terrific lo-fat segments on advertising today! But are you buying what I'm selling?

Part I: I Hate This Billboard... a Little Less!

Sure, it continues the obnoxious pattern of happy-face advertising that I have complained of before with these people. So why do I hate this one a little less? It's the piggy bank. They have, at last, established a visual connection between the happy-face person and the service (saving money) that they have on offer. I'll take progress where I can find it.

But, isn't it traditional to select a picture for the ad in which the model kept her eyes open?


Part II: Fred Meyer Thinks You Are Completely Amoral!

I actually find this Election Day ad, for the regional Krogers-owned supermarket chain Fred Meyer, kind of shocking.

Here's the text: You're going to hear a lot about red states and blue states today, but what really matters is who can let you keep the most green in your wallet. You can count on Fred Meyer to deliver without a presidential mandate.

Am I crazy? I mean, more than usual? It seems to me that this ad offhandedly discounts, or even mocks, any semblance of ideals, community mindedness, patriotism, concern for humanity, team spirit, or good vibes you might have brought to the voting process.

And at the very least, it telegraphs a spooky corporate mentality. Do I really want to do business with a merchant who thinks that all that matters is maximizing the green at all costs? (Answer: Probably not. Fred Meyer went to crap after it was bought out by Krogers. I avoid it when I can.)




Part III: michael5000 Misses Some Connections

Ever wondered if anybody ever reads those "Missed Connections" ads in your local alternative weekly or online classified ads service? Hey, me too! To find out more, I placed a series of Missed Connections ads on the Portland Craigslist over the last few weeks. In the spirit of science, I present here the text of my ads along with the responses they provoked, for your independant assessment and peer review.

Ad #1: Friday on the #15 Bus
Our eyes met, we both smiled, but then it was my stop. I should have stayed on. Let's talk!
Response: None.

Ad #2: Near Miss, 28th/Burnside
Blue jeans, gray sweatshirt, red hair. I almost hit you in the crosswalk at 28th and Burnside. You shot me the bird and yelled that I was a "fucking asshole." You are totally hot. Can I make it up to you by buying you dinner?
Response: None.

Ad#3: East Side Fred Meyer, Friday Afternoon
In the produce section on Friday afternoon. I smiled at you; you seemed a little nervous. I found your indifference fascinating. Write me!
Response: None.

Ad#4: Providence ER, 1:15 a.m. Wednesday
Blonde woman checking into Providence Emergency Room, 1:15 a.m. Wednesday. We talked in the waiting room; I wouldn't tell you what was the matter with me. You are so beautiful! I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. I hope you don't lose the use of your arm. Would love to see you again.
Response: None.

Conclusions: Eh, obviously nobody reads those things.


Part IIII: MadisonAvenue5000

Over the past few weeks, I've been purchasing advertising for this very online variety magazine. That's right. I've been flogging the blog.

In setting up my campaign, I rejected the idea of contracting with the famous local firm Weiden + Kennedy, afraid they would still be mad about my intemperate remarks on their "Oregon: We Love Dreamers" work. Instead, I opened an account with the Project Wonderful service, which has a fun auction-based model for advertisers on a budget. It's kind of like promotional Ebay.

"On a budget," in my case, means on the budget of $5.00 (U.S.) that I allocated for the campaign with Mrs.5000's eye-rolling assent. I started with this ad:


...but as the hours passed, I became more sophisticated about "branding" and "market positioning," and graduated to these:

I started out looking for like-minded sites on which to advertise, but it's actually pretty hard to find a site that is like-minded to the L&TM5K, a blog so scattershot that even ~I~ am not sure what it's supposed to be about. So I quickly evolved to looking for sites that were dirt cheap. And, I'm happy to report that after more than a week of saturating the internet with literally dozens of ads, I still have more than $3.00 of my advertising budget available. (My "big ticket" bid, incidently, has been on Cartophilia, a blog that actually is kinda like-minded, takes Project Wonderful ads, and has sent plenty of internet explorers this way already through its blogroll.)

So, has it all paid off? Eh, who knows. There have been several dozen clickovers, but I imagine a lot of them are just blog owners trying to figure out what their new advertiser is trying to sell (an excellent question). The important thing is, a good time is being had by all.

Michael5000 Sells Out

The next stage of my goofing off is, I'm going to offer Project Wonderful advertising space on the L&TM5K itself. That's right -- for at least the next month, starting this weekend, your pleasure in reading this blog will be enhanced by the presence of commercial messages! It'll be fun! And, of course, I encourage you to hurl baskets of money at my fine sponsors, whoever they will be. Or better yet, at me.

The Thursday Quiz LX

The Thursday Quiz!

The Thursday Quiz is an "Is It or Isn't It" game. From the list of twelve items, your job is to determine whether each IS or ISN'T a true example of the week's category.

Remember always the ultimate authority on the matter:

No research, Googling, Wikiing, or use of reference books. The Thursday Quiz is a POP quiz. Violators will emerge almost entirely intact at the bottom of a glacier, centuries hence.

This Week's Category has a certain finality!

Last Lines

Below are twelve concluding lines from twelve books you may have read. Which ones are attributed to the correct novel?

1. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque: I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

2. Catch-22, Joseph Heller: The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.

3.Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger: Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

4. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky: yes I said yes I will Yes.

5. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell: Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.

6. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

7. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte: Daily He announces more distinctly, ‘Surely I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly respond, ‘Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’

8. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence: L--d! said my mother, what is all this story about?——A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick——And one of the best of its kind I ever heard.

9. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs: The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

10. Rabbit, Run, John Updike: But that is the beginning of a new story - the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

11. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov: His ravaged memory quiets down, and no one will trouble the professor until the next full moon: neither the noseless murderer of Gestas, nor the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the knight Pontius Pilate.

12. Ulysses, James Joyce: He drew a deep breath. “Well, I’m back,” he said.

Post your answers in the comments.

Your Friends on Election Day 2008

OK, I was going to talk about some books today, but instead...

Your Friends on FaceBook with New Status Updates, 8:45 p.m. 11/4/08

C.B. is very very happy. about a minute ago

N.G. is YES WE DID! Solid like BARACK! 4 minutes ago

C.S. is celebrating Obama's victory!!!!! Tonight I am proud to be an American. 11 minutes ago

T.K. is not only ecstatic about our president-elect, but giddy that she got to hug Storm Large on hearing the news. 12 minutes ago

E.B.: this is actually a great concession speech. 14 minutes ago

J.M. is feeling all 1992 all over again. 15 minutes ago

A.C. would give anything to be in Chicago right now! :-D. 20 minutes ago

D.G. Feel like I could fly. And, breathe for the first time in eight years. Hallelujia! 24 minutes ago

S.W. says YAY OBAMA!!!!! 30 minutes ago

C.M. is happy as a clam. 32 minutes ago

A.F. has goosebumps. 34 minutes ago

J.S. projects a better tomorrow than she had anticipated. 35 minutes ago

R.S. is proud to be an American again. =' ). 39 minutes ago

J.B. is listening to NPR and thinking about change. :-). 54 minutes ago

A.H.W.M. can't wait to FINALLY be proud of a president. about an hour ago

L.G. is going crazy on the CNN electoral map calculator can't stop pressing the button. 3 hours ago

J.J. is watching t.v ELECTION NIGHT. 3 hours ago

S.L. is thinking little African-American girls living in the White House is a delightful image. 3 hours ago

E.H.B. has election fever. Or maybe just the flu. 3 hours ago

C.L. is going to Betsy's to have a quiet glass of wine, some vegan goodies, and watch Obama paint the country BLUE! 4 hours ago

K.H. is gettin' her vote on for the first time ever and is praying, "God be with this country..." 7 hours ago

S.C. is getting out the vote for Barack Obama. 7 hours ago

D.N. is undecided. (mac and cheese or beans and rice). 8 hours ago

T.T. is drinking and watching election coverage. 8 hours ago

J.R. is ready to boogie for Barack...Visualize Victory folks! 9 hours ago

J.E. loves all the status messages about the election - hopefully Gen X or Y or whatever we are really gets out in force today. 9 hours ago

L.P. is bubbling with excitement, hope and more than a dash of the jitters. YES WE CAN!!! 10 hours ago

M.B. is voting for Obama. 12 hours ago

I.J. is being tortured by the suspense of it all! Really, she CANNOT read another political analysis and just needs to start seeing some results! 14 hours ago

L.B. is excited that today could be a historical day in the history of our country....go obama! 15 hours ago

M.W.F. has donated his status to remind everyone how awesome he is. 20 hours ago

J.B. is hoping with all my heart that in less than 24 hours we will be getting our ridiculous Alaskan governor back and the rest of you will never hear of her again. 22 hours ago

B.A. has something to look forward to. 23 hours ago

V.M. is yelling "GO OBAMA!!" on Monday

Addendum: I Like Where I Live

Election Day Number 2008

Here to Remind You that it's Time to Vote.....

...why, it's MyDogIsChelsea! This photo is from her recent star turn on YesWeCake.com, which makes her among the very most famous members of the L&TM5K community. Her YesWeCake appearance also includes a photograph of me, michael5000, casting a vote for my own preferred candidate. So y'all can just lay off with that "news broadcast from the future" meme, OK? I get it! I voted!

More pictures from the MyDogIsChelsea voting party -- including a few in which if you look very, very closely you can actually kind of tell whom she voted for -- can be found here.



Who Are Some of the Other Famous Members of the L&TM5K Community?

Well, you may have noticed this when you were flipping through this month's Oklahoma Magazine:




But did you notice who gets top billing?


That's right -- Blythe's Bee-Spot is officially the Greatest Oklahoma Website! [insert cruel joke here.] Now, that's famous! Mind you, I don't know if she technically considers herself "of the L&TM5K Community," but since I've been more or less trying to rip off her writing style for the last year and change she's pretty much on board whether she wants to be or not.

(Rip off her writing style, that is, except for the self-depricating part. I haven't mastered that bit yet.)


Also, Rex.

Really, having the 55th Greatest Crossword Puzzle Solver in the Universe as the official Dork of your independent blog is kind of like having Dick Cheney on the board of your international engineering and construction corporation. It's good for business. Here's what happened when Rex Parker put his DorkFest championship badge up on Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle:


We can only wonder what would happen if he wrote something like "The Life & Times of Michael5000 is not just the most insightful, vital, necessary thing happening on the internet today -- it's also consistently laugh-out-loud funny!"


But Enough About Famous Readers. The Important Thing Is....

...as Elizabeth recently posted, cryptically but memorably:


Courage, people....

The Monday Quiz L

The Monday Quiz Goes to ___________!

1. Flat as a board because it's built on an old lakebed; perenially smoggy because of the surrounding mountains: what city is this?

2. These nice people must be celebrating the ______ ______ ______.

3. Why, it's the famous architecture and mural art of the _____________!


4. Why such unpleasantness in this Manet painting?

5. What's this thingy?

Submit your answers in the comments.

Almost Bay Along It, We'll be Out of the Earth Special

From time to time there will be a fad here in the United States of America to plaster characters from Asian languages all over our leisure clothing. By tradition, the wearer will neither know nor care what the characters mean; the point is only that they look exotic and more or less stylin' upon one's chest or thigh. A few of us will fret about the intellectual vacuity of this sartorial choice, but nobody cares what we think.

Well, it goes both ways. All over the world, people express their contempt for the Anglo-American cultural hegemony by sporting T-shirts on which our beloved mother tongue is contorted into strange and surreal forms. These shirts embody a postmodernist's contempt of the simplistic notion that language can convey precise "meaning." The sole message they bear is rather that coherence is an illusion -- that concepts and states of mind can at most only be extracted from the medium of written language in the form of vague gestures and allusions. Or, as the shirt of a young Russian gentleman I met recently had it,

Almost bay along it
We'll be out of the Earth special

Occasional L&TM5K Commenter Heatherbee has of late been sojourning in the countries of Asia, and took time out from studying traditional Korean drumming techniques to investigate the T-shirt phenomenon. Here, brought to you with the kind help of her mother, is a sampling of her collection.

In conclusion, if you only remember one piece of T-shirt wisdom, it might well be this one:

Brighten the corner where you are
Water is Life
Every Drops of Water are Value

The Thursday Quiz LIX

The Thursday Quiz!

The Thursday Quiz is an "Is It or Isn't It" game. From the list of twelve items, your job is to determine whether each IS or ISN'T a true example of the week's category.

Remember always the moral authority of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition:

No research, Googling, Wikiing, or use of reference books. The Thursday Quiz is a POP quiz. Violators will be unclean until morning.

This Week's Category will smite you but good!

Big Names of the Old Testament

Which of the following are more or less accurate profiles of figures from the Hebrew Bible? And which are entirely apocryphal -- in the sense of, I made them up?

1. Basaam -- Second-in-command to Moses. Leads Israelites to victory in several battles during the flight from Egypt, but blows it by talking Israelites into worshipping a Golden Calf while Moses is away.

2. Cain -- First son of Adam, he is murdered by his brother Abel in a fit of jealousy.

3. David -- Military prodigy, composer, bandit warlord, serial adulterer, and King of Israel, bane to Philistines and the husbands of his lovers, he receives special favor from God for his devotion and piety.

4. Elijah -- King of Babel. Conquers the whole world in the time when there is still only a single language. Commands the construction of a great tower, for which he and his kingdom are punished.

5. Elisha -- Eldest son of the king of Edom. Sacrifices old, sick goats to God so he can keep his healthy, valuable cattle. Is punished by blindness and by the conquest of the Edomites by the Assyrians.

6. Esau -- The grandson of Adam and Grandfather of Abraham. God promises him that his descendents will be the Chosen People.

7. Isaac -- Tricks his elder brother into surrendering his birthright, and tricks his dad into making him heir. But then gets tricked by his father in law, who makes him work for seven years and then gives him the less attractive daughter. Father of Joseph.

8. Jezebel -- The Queen of Sheba. Visits King David and exchanges lavish gifts with him. A romantic liaison between the two of them is hinted at, but never spelled out.

9. Joseph -- Sold into slavery in Egypt by his older brothers, he works his way up the ladder from slave to high government official. Has the whole family move down to Egypt, from where they will have to escape a few generations later.

10. Sarah -- An Israelite leader during the time of the Judges. Allows herself to be "lured into" a Moabite general's tent, then bludgeons him to death with his own idol of Baal.

11. Saul -- First king of the Israelites. Successful on the battlefield, but angers God by ignoring details of religious practice. Falls on his sword when it all goes wrong.

12. Solomon -- Father of King David. Unites the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Receives the code of religious and civil laws from God. Killed in battle against the Philistines.

Post your answers in the comments.