Out of Hearing, Out of Mind

Razors

It's hard to justify spending this kind of money on razors, especially when my facial hair looks so good on me.

Week 6 Response

The Question:

Branding allows a product to stand out from other products, but selecting an appropriate brand name can be challenging.  The name should  be easy to pronounce and descriptive.  What name would you give to a pizza shop?  Explain your name and provide any information about the business that is relevant in the selection of the name.  Critique the various names given by your classmates.

If I was to own a pizza shop I would name it pasties because I would have a sit down bar and pizza joint instead of just the regular old go-go bar I would have very attractive waitresses wearing small shorts and pasties. Sex sells in this world and what would put my shop ahead but being the only one with beer wings excellent pizza and half naked girls. It may sound very blunt but look at hooters they are famous down south granted they did not make it up here but my shop would be something new and innovative i would maybe even have theme nights where the girls would do maybe host games for free pizza coupons etc.

Do NOT do a Google image search for "pasties" if you are at work or, like, if your mom is in the room. Swear, I had no idea what they were so I was sinning in ignorance. Ten seconds later and a quick erasure of my history and I'm a little bit wiser and a lot more convinced that "Pasties" would be the worst mash up ever. Theme nights does sound a little intriguing though...

Anyways, here's what I put:

  

"A brand name should be short and sweet, like a dwarf covered in Splenda. It should also be timeless, like Rivers Cuomo. 

It should be catchy, like the swine flu but not offensive, like striper waitresses (see Ms. Lewitinn's post). "Pasties".... sheesh.

 

I would call my pizza shop "Chester's Pizza" after Chester from "The Sifl & Olly Show". That would give me a mascot that's underground and hip as well as awesome.

Seriously, he is far and away my favorite television personality of all time."

 There's a link on Blackboard where you can check your grades. Turns out I am getting full credit for these responses. With a pass/fail assignment that values quantity infinitely more than quality such as this I'm almost tempted to be even more asinine and inane. If the teacher has to edit her syllabus because of me then I'll consider this semester a success.

 

Trash Runs

This is something I drew to explain what trash runs are.

What I Was Thinking about at 3am Last Night

Has anyone else ever noticed that "The Prince of Persia" and "The African Queen" are like the exact same movie?

If the road less traveled is covered in snow, don't take it.

I'm driving on Junction Road this afternoon when all of a sudden my car starts veering sharply to the left despite me not having turned the steering wheel. My first thought was "Oh man. I should not have been driving so fast on a road that's covered in snow." My second thought was "Or maybe my Chevy Aveo is actually a Transformer and is driving for me. That would be awesome, especially if Megan Fox is somehow later involved."

I still haven't ruled out the possibility that my car is actually a sentient life form from another planet, but if that is the case then it's a pretty sucky driver. Or it could have just been drunk this afternoon. Either way, my car spun around 560 degrees and ended up with the hood and front tires in a snow bank on the opposite side of the road.

 I tried backing out. 

That didn't work. Then I remembered hearing "the only way out is through" once and I put the car back into drive. 

Robert Frost gives the worst driving advice.   

Week 5 Response

Another week, another silly question to reply to. Here's this week's gem:

You are selling an exercise video.  Who would be your target market?  Why did you select this group of consumers?  Describe any particular features of your product that would interest your target market, and explain why these features are important?  Defend your selection against a classmate's different choice.

 Everyone else posted they would target fat people. That is a boring answer.  Here's mine:

If I were making an exercise video I would market it to people who hate clowns. As the graph below illustrates, there is a substantial demographic of clown haters.

The numbers behind the graph can easily be verified by doing a simple Google image search for "clowns". The creepy, frightening, and outright perverse results are indicative of a societal discontentment towards Ronald McDonald, Pennywise, Barnum and/or Bailey, Krusty, and the rest of their ill begotten ilk.        

There are currently no products specifically targeting people who hate clowns (aside from various forms of therapy), exercise videos or otherwise. An entire market share passively suffers in silence. I want to tap that potential with my exercise videos. I would tailor my training such that people would immediately begin to feel safer and more confident in the presence of clowns.

The exercise program would begin with some cardio videos so that one would be capable of running and escaping either a large group of clowns or one really aggressive one. Later in the program I would go into detail on how to take the offensive against clowns, but it's important to learn early that sometimes running away is the best course of action.

you should always run from this type of clown. no exceptions. don't be a hero.

Next I would start a strength training regimen. Clowns don't feel love or fear, but they do feel pain so it's important to make sure you inflict the largest amount possible with each punch to the face and kick to the groin. Do not feel bad about hitting a clown below the belt because they'd do the same to you. 

After accumulating the necessary muscle mass, I would teach some advanced clown fighting lessons. Krav Maga, MMA, and possibly even knife and small arms training would be part of the final course so people will be prepared to dispatch clowns as efficiently as possible after finishing my exercise videos.  




That's my response. It's not the funniest one, however. I think that award belongs to the following answer:

If i was to sell an excercise video  my target audience would be women ages 17-40 because women are vunerable about there weight. Every women wants to look like Carmen Electra but most of us unfortunately don't ! I selected this market because women of this age are generally single , married or divorced either way they still want to know they are attractive. This would be the vital feature to selling my product is playing on that need to feel attractive. A trait that an excercise video would have is promising the "sexy apperance that every women craves".

 Yes, it was posted in that color. Also, Carmen is 40 years old now, so I can't imagine the majority of women are dying to look like an ex-porn star far past her prime.

Conflicting Conclusions

Those afflicted with androgenic alopecia suddenly have bigger problems than the social stigmas associated with the early onset of male pattern baldness. According to some doctors, you probably have cancer as well. Awesome, right? I like the idea of a champion fighting back against the hair gods, preferably one whose strength is only surpassed by the volume of his own hair.

Then again, you might not have cancer. Other doctors came to the exact opposite conclusion. After reading both studies (or at least the Cliffs' Notes version of them) I've come to the conclusion that some bald men get prostate cancer and some bald me don't. I know, I should have gone to med school instead of drawing comics for a living.

The last frame was drawn seconds before the doctors started a rumble, Sharks v Jets style, only with less singing and more stabbing with scalpels.

Butter

How could you not vote for this guy? I mean, he's a karate expert with very liberal views on what constitutes a marriage and has a whole lot of conviction. I believe his message about the rent being economically challenging. I don't believe his facial hair. He's got kind of a Franz Josef/The Duke from Cinderella moustache sideburn bridge look with extra emphasis on his chin. Men have been growing hair on their faces since before they could walk upright, but never in all those years has anyone shaved that facial hair like Jimmy McMillan. If he can somehow channel that same creativity into solving New York's 3 billion dollar budget deficit then he earned my vote.

Ken Jennings did not represent on Jeopardy tonight. Luckily Brad Rutter kept Watson in check and is currently tied with the machine at the end of the first round. I have faith that Ken will turn things around in Double Jeopardy. He needs to keep winning if he expects his merchandise to keep selling.

Pleased as Punch

The YSA conference was not quite what I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be maybe a couple talks and then a bunch of activity type things where you could meet people. Instead it ended up being a couple talks and then one really long talk with this lady who's supposed to be a dating expert or something. She was the one talking about how to ask for digits and other Dating 101 advice, as well as going over the 17 secrets to the male and female psychology. What are the secrets? That information will cost ya, to the tune of $175. No joke. The tagline for her program is "It's not you, it's your technique" which I find strikingly similar to what I discussed about the Men's Health article.

After all the talks they had a dance. After going to these things for 11 years now, I've come to the conclusion that a dance is not the best event to get to know a bunch of people. What you end up with usually is a group of friends standing together most of the time. A slow song will get played now and then and the best looking girls will get asked to dance while everyone else just kind of mills around uncomfortably until the song ends and they go back to standing next to their friends. It's difficult to talk. It's difficult to see. Less than 2% of the people there actually like dancing in public.

That's an example of my "Identify a Problem" skill. Here's an example of my "Fix a Problem" skill: scrap the dance and set up a speed dating activity instead. Spending two minutes with each person at the activity in a safe, controlled setting is a lot less intimidating and a more efficient way of meeting people.

So yeah, the conference wasn't what I expected, and not just because I didn't look at the itinerary before showing up. I'm also really glad I went.

Weekly Responses

Mortician school is easy. I'm not taking any classes this semester that are funeral school specific- just a couple small business type ones. The hardest thing I have to do every week is post a response on Blackboard to some silly question the teacher asks. The question, and all the answers, are super boring. I try and spice them up as much as possible while still getting credit. Here's week four's question:



Once you write your mission statement for your business, what would you do with it?  Do you think it is important for each employee to have a copy?  Why or why not?  What would you expect them to do with the information? 


Oh my goodness who cares right? Anyway, here's what I wrote back:

Once you have your mission statement written it's important to have other people read it. You can make your employees read it by including it in their training, posting it conspicuously around the office/kitchen/break room, or threatening to fire them if they don't. But I believe people absorb information better if they want to. There are several steps things you can do to turn your employees into veritable sponges, sucking up all the wisdom included in your mission statement.

First thing you're going to want to do is spice up the font. Times New Roman is for old people. "Ctrl A" your statement and make it hip with some Arial/Helvetica, or keep it casual with a little Comic Sans. Type important words like "VOLCANOES", "INVASION", or "WORCHESTER SAUCE" in all caps,  then maybe make them a different color like red or something to really make them pop.

Pictures say a thousand words. This is a good thing, since they're usually the only thing people are going to look at anyway. Make those thousand words count. Do not include a graph and call it a picture. Graphs are not pictures. Graphs are boring, pictures are not. See examples:

Lastly, you're going to want to have employees feel like they can somehow contribute to the mission statement. Have the last page of your statement be like a suggestions page or a survey they can fill out. Having a mechanism in place to act as a follow up to make sure they paid attention that simultaneously promotes interest in the welfare of the company is a boon to any mission statement. But the best part is, you don't even have to read their stupid answers. Because you're the boss.  
 

Also make sure you run spellcheck so you don't look like an idiot.

Mix and Mingle

There's a YSA conference this weekend down in Boston. I'm going, but the above comic is pretty accurate about my feelings towards the event. Not only do I not expect to find any greener grass, but even if I did it would only depress me since a long distance relationship between Boston and Albany isn't feasible. If there's one thing I've learned in all my years of dating, it's that long distance relationships are terminal and a pointless emotional investment. If there are two things I've learned from dating, the second thing would be not to bother washing your car before picking up your date, since they never notice anyway.

The real reason I'm going is because I'm committed to doing everything possible to keep from becoming a SA instead of a YSA. A few years ago Doug and I went to an activity in Palmyra we thought was YSA but when we showed up we discovered it was SA. It was equal parts awkward and depressing.

Snoozer

According to Wikipedia and my own personal alarm clock, most digital snooze buttons turn the alarm off for nine minutes. Who the heck decided nine minutes (or multiples of nine minutes, as is often the case with me) was the best amount of time people should be allowed to sleep in? The only advantage I can think of is it makes me a little more awake when I have to start doing math in the morning, trying to add and subtract by nine which is slightly more difficult than say adding and subtracting by ten.

Apologies are in order for my college roommate, who on multiple occasions put up with me hitting the snooze button for upwards of two hours some mornings. Like the comic says, I'm a snooze crack head and some days I would snooze through an entire day's worth of classes.

Foul Shots

In honor of Superbowl Sunday, here's a sports themed comic. As far as personal progress goes, adopting the proverb "if at first you don't succeed, lower your goals" isn't going to lead to a lot of improving. Nor in the above instance will it help your FGP.

I went snowboarding for the first time in two years this weekend and no, it wasn't the fake/poor kind of snowboarding from a few comics back. Luckily, snowboarding skills are more akin to bicycling skill than, say, Call of Duty skills. It took one run down the bunny hill and I was back in my element, despite the two year hiatus. Take two years off playing MW2 and then sign into Deathmatch and see how well you do. Hope being in last place every single time doesn't bother you.

When I was 16 I built this ramp behind my grandparents house that was about four feet tall on the edge of a ditch that was another four feet down. I didn't fully understand the importance of having a slope to come down on when you landed. I also didn't believe you needed very much snow because just a dusting allowed enough slide to get down a hill. So I landed on a flat, frozen surface going a pretty good clip and broke my right arm. Since then, I tend to ride conservatively. That wasn't the case this past time, and it felt awesome. And I didn't break my arm, so that was cool too.

Dead NPC's

I beat Dead Space 2 tonight. If you don't want any spoilers about it (or the first Dead Space) don't read ahead. If you don't play video games and don't care about Dead Space 2 then don't bother reading ahead either.

I liked how they fleshed out Isaac's character more this time around, especially towards the endgame when he's really coming to terms with his mental collapse. I liked the environment design variety, though it was hard to ignore when the level designers reused set pieces. The Hive Mind final boss in the first game was far superior than the... um... Nicole(?) final boss, though the final level was a lot more intense in DS2 (freaking Regenerators from RE4... I hate those things...). I wish the Tiedemann's character had been decided on if he were good or bad- he went from being the central human protagonist to being partially redeemed at the final level back to finally trying to shoot a javelin in my head. Zero-g combat was almost non-existent, which is odd. DS2 loved to drop baddies right behind your character for a cheap hit. I would think being able to launch them at you from any direction while you floated helplessly about would be right up their dark corridor. I would have liked trying to fight Necromorphs in a 360 degree environment. Maybe in DS3. I couldn't overlook a huge plot hole, where Ellie is super distrusting of Isaac when they first meet because "people are a liability", but then proceeds to drag the nutty Stross around for half the game. Whatever. There are other issues I have with the game, and most of them are covered in IGN's article here if you're still interested.

I liked the ending, which was considerably more positive than DS1. I had hoped the end would show the Marker or a bunch of Necromorphs crashing into Earth to set up DS3, but I guess 12 other Marker sites in space is enough of a teaser for the next installment.

The Dead Space series is gracious enough to simultaneously debut a new enemy with a demonstration of their fighting tactics, both from a safe distance. The first example was in the very first room in the first game, when the Slasher guys dropped on the other side of the glass on top of the rest of Isaac's team. In case you couldn't tell those things were bad news, the game made sure you could watch as they sliced and diced your friends before you ran into one yourself.

Codenames

Some of the other codenames I found interesting were India's and China's. India called theirs "Smiling Buddha", which I think is an odd thing to call a WMD. I don't think "Smiling Jesus" was ever even a consideration for our bomb. It certainly sounds innocuous enough though, like a project that would involve you rubbing a brass tummy as opposed to dropping 12 kilotons on some guy's house. China named theirs "596". I imagine that's just China's way of giving the finger to creative expressionism. Typical China. I don't know where China dropped the other 595 bombs before they made one that worked. Probably Tibet.

Women and Wikipedia

Here's the link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?bl

Or you could click here, because I'm so dang blogging proficient.