Spam Can Be Fun!

So on my last entry (which was hurriedly written and not especially coherent), I got this comment:

Sweety said...
Your commentary style is great i loved it.

Dear
I am inviting you to the launch of my website
www.webmarketer.com.
Please visit & send in your genuine comments.
Your Sweety

Like any gullible consumer, I clicked through. What, you wouldn't? :-) Call me easily amused.

What's there is horrible. Garish pink background, green animated gif, terrible design, annoying google ad bar taking up way too much horizontal space... in short, a nightmare.

The crowning glory is a wondrous poem or manifesto or something, which I copy and paste here for your reading "pleasure":

I believe in God.

I also believe in teamwork.

I am in the business of creating and planting desire

in human minds and I am proud that I take a reward for it.

I must be respected and admired for what

I do today and tomorrow, rather than for what I did yesterday.

I pursue high quality, utmost efficiency

and perfection in everything I do.

I shall remain honest, sincere, simple, humble

and loyal to work, to myself and to all people I interact with.

I admire charity, happiness,

freedom and respect for the individual.

I unceasingly strive for progress, always reminding

myself that any progress is impossible without renewal and change.

I worship at the altar of simplicity,

clarity of thought and power of the idea.

I am passionate about growth and understand that

passion, enthusiasm, skill and detailing in my work fuels it.

I want to be the No.l in all markets I operate

by giving powerful, response-oriented, world-class creative and professional, positive relationship-oriented service to my clients.



I focus on building powerful brands.

And I operate through online marketing

GOD CREATIVITY AND BRAND BUILDING

Hehehe. So much I could say here... but I think I really need to let it speak for itself. Let's just say I hope, for "Sweetie's" sake, that this is something that was created yesterday -- because if I were "her," I would not want anyone to give me credit for it. (Apparently, "she" can't take credit for things that have happened in the past, if I read her philosophy right.)

As for the "I believe in God" line... any God that condones consumerism, bad Web design, poorly executed spam, and rambling, unrealistic manifestos is probably not going to be the real one. Just sayin'.

P.S.
The reason I put quotes around "Sweetie's" name and pronouns is because I'm pretty sure "she" is a 50-year-old homeless man who lives in the hold of a shipwrecked yacht somewhere off the coast of Sri Lanka.

Pet Peeves: Syntax

Take a look at this headline from the Christian Science Monitor: All gun control can't be local. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who read this and go, "Looks all right to me" (though they would be more likely to spell it "alright") and those who read this and say, "Arrrrgh! The syntax is all wrong; that doesn't mean what the writer wanted it to mean!"

The thesis of the editorial is that not all gun control can be local. This limits "all," since the "not" directly modifies it. The headline that actually got online, however, means something related but quite different: No gun control can be local. This is because the "cannot" contracted to "can't" applies to "All gun control."

When syntactic looseness like this gets in print, what little hair remains to me is in severe danger of being plucked out by its meager little roots. The imprecision, despite the fact that most readers will understand the phrase's meaning, frustrates me because I want to be able to express both of these senses, and if we collapse both of them into one construction, it will become less readily apparent what that construction means.

Please, please think of the word order, people! :-)

Is Cheney Human After All?

The only indication I have that our esteemed second-in-command might have a soul that could be described as human: his love for his daughter, Mary Cheney. Apparently, in a recent Vanity Fair article, Dick refused to get into the causes of homosexuality and called it a "deeply personal" question. Interesting how such a big Republican issue is somewhat flexible for Cheney...

David Blaine's Mommy Did Not Hug Him Enough When He Was a Child

Note from the LuapHacim, 11/14/2012: The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect my current beliefs and convictions. Even if they do, I would almost certainly express them in different words today. Time changes people, and I am not exempt. Nonetheless, because of its historical value, I will not modify or remove this post. It tells you (and me) something important about where I've been. Read on at your own peril.

World renowned daredevil/performance artist/attention whore David Blaine is at it again. This time, the wacky man is spending a week underwater in an 8-foot sphere at Lincoln Center. He is literally a goldfish begging for spectators.

But that's not all; according to the AP article,

In a week, he will remove the breathing device and try to hold his breath underwater to surpass a record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds -- longer than a dolphin, he says, but still surpassed by the sperm whale.

In an added display of extreme multitasking, Blaine will try to escape from 150 pounds of chains and handcuffs during the breath-holding finale.

Wonderful. So he's going to try to outdo Navy SEALs, Houdini, and dolphins... all at the same time. Can we say "starved for attention"?

The title of this post is only halfway joking. I think there's a severe lack of early childhood affection in our culture -- hence, the mania for getting people to recognize our worth via reality TV and wacky stunts like this. If more parents spent time with their kids and made them feel loved in a variety of caring ways, I think we'd be a lot more balanced, both as a society and as individual family units.

At the very least, maybe Blaine wouldn't have to "invite visitors to stop by and wave at him" during this bizarre feat.

Amazingest Movie

Note from the LuapHacim, 11/14/2012: The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect my current beliefs and convictions. Even if they do, I would almost certainly express them in different words today. Time changes people, and I am not exempt. Nonetheless, because of its historical value, I will not modify or remove this post. It tells you (and me) something important about where I've been. Read on at your own peril.

Ran across this thing today; it's bloody brilliant.