Two experiences of note with audio

i) Continental Airlines shows ads on their flights, before they begin the in-flight programming. In other words, through the regular audio system, not the headphone systems. The ads are very very loud. Painfully loud. You’re strapped into your seat and you can’t get away. The screens drop down, the audio starts. You have nowhere else to look and even with my fingers in my ears I could hear every damn noise in the Verizon and Are We There Yet? ads. Blecchgh.

ii) Walking through Midtown Manhattan this morning, I saw the all-too-familiar emergency-vehicle-gridlock scenario. An ambulance or fire truck is rushing somewhere, sirens wailing, but there’s nowhere for them to go – the lanes in front of them are blocked, so they sound the air horn, over and over again, to very little avail. Only this time it was slightly different – the ambulance in question had a modified type of siren, akin to the “wheep-WHEEP” they sometimes use as a honk, but it was almost verbal in its wide range of fluctuations. There was a large “vocabulary” if you will, and it seemed to convey more urgency, rather than rote pressure. I’m sure there is a human-factors alarm attendance specialist who designed this stuff (or at least who has written about it somewhere), but I’d never heard of it or heard it. I’m sure that eventually people will become used to it and tune it out, but since it was new to me, it caught my attention.

A variety of 3D portraits, made from bent wire, in a restaurant window (Sushi Ann) in NYC. They are about the size of a sheet of paper. Nice stuff.

Here’s a picture I snapped in the Newark airport earlier this week. Perhaps this woman likes looking like a cyborg; I find it strange, but that’s maybe just me being judgemental.

Today I received this email

From: “Nichole Asher” nichole.xxx at xxx.com
To: steve at portigal dot com
Subject: Hefty Serve ‘n Store blog media outreach!

Hi Steve,

Let me start off by saying that I work for an agency that works for Pactiv, the maker of the new Hefty Serve ‘n Store interlocking plates & bowls. We are doing online outreach for the product through influential folks like yourself and would like to know if you’d be interested in participating in the product launch.

The company I work for is one of the world’s largest PR firms, called MS&L; we’re a subsidiary in Ann Arbor, MI called Hass MS&L. My full contact information is at the bottom of this e-mail.

I understand if you are skeptical, so I’m offering to send you links to web sites of other product launches that we’ve done and the responses showing this is legit. In fact, if you search Google using my company name (Hass MS&L) and the name of one of my co-workers ([email protected]) you’ll find reviews of similar product
launches where these names are referenced.

So let me cut to the chase: Noise Between Stations is *the* place to hear about new products and such, and I think your readers would find the technology behind the interlocking plates interesting. I’m wondering if I can send you information and a sample so you can try the Hefty Serve ‘n Store products. They’re not on the market yet, but I have an order coming in pre-launch.

The plates and bowls are absolutely free, and in return the only thing my client has asked is that you post a review of the product on your blog.

Please let me know if this is something you’re interested in and I will add your name to the fulfillment list today.

Thanks,
Nichole

[contact info deleted]

Now what was that? “Noise Between Stations is *the* place to hear about new products and such” – but this isn’t Noise Between Stations, it’s my blog, All This ChittahChattah. Pretty hilarious – she could have written “…is a great source of good information” or anything more general, but she had to say that it was “*the* place” – of course, then she was caught sending obvious form letters to different people, and oops, forgetting to change the contact info. We’ve all sent out dozens of resumes or whatever and we always hope that we make sure to change the info in our form letter, right? It would be a pleasure to work with you at MICROSOFT CORPORATION in REDMOND, WA. Etc.

But this person has it as their job, and they are trying to win over cynical bloggers (hey, by assuming that we’re already cynical, right?) so you’d think they’d be able to do a little better than that?

I called her on it and got this

apologize for that, I was reading the wrong blog name due to having multiple windows, so this was actually meant for you @ All This Chittah-Chattah if you are interested.

Anyway, I’m not proud. I’ll take the damn Hefty-whatsit and I’ll write about it. But I thought the poor PR effort was also blogworthy.

Here are some of the recent search phrases that led people to this blog:

free daily short SMS collection
brian rossiter
Keith Richards T-shirts
cell phone glue clip
steve portigal
torrentspycom
rejection hotlines in texas
oan nationwide conn
cellphones under 20.00 dollars
EMAIL ABOUT HUSBAND TYPING PENIS FOR PASS WORD
ipod rhinestones
Stereotypes Canadians
Message T-shirts, rhinestones
www.ebpp.wellsfargo.com/mortgagepay
truth behind the gates of Auschwitz
rhinestones on phones
where to send latino short stories to be published
vw beetle toddler bed
check invisible status skype
chattah
nasalguard blog
comcast autopay

I’m off to New Jersey/New York this week. I’ll be doing some meetings in NJ to kick off an exciting new project, and then hanging for a couple of days in NYC (staying at the W Hotel) to see some friends

. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve been out there; looking forward to it!

Doesn’t the core of Lego’s brand reside in the physical meatspace interaction with the bricks themselves? The tactile, the auditory snik? But this Star Wars Videogame recasts Lego as an aesthetic (granted, something the underground has done for many years), a style of animation, and a proxy for kid-friendly. Sure, it’ll sell a jillion units (as will anything Anakin-tastic these days) but is this good for Lego in the long, long run?

I survive a violent assault

Forty-five minutes ago I was fortunate to survive a violent, deliberate attempt to cause me harm. I took the dog for a walk, and just around the corner – less than 3 minutes from our house, on foot – a man in a pickup truck drove directly at me.

There are no sidewalks in Montara. Pedestrians must walk on the road. The road in this case was more than wide enough for two vehicles. There was no car behind us. It was full daylight out, but not bright enough to be shining the driver’s eyes.

This was not a deserted area; in my walk I saw probably 15 other dogs (with many people), kids being dropped off, joggers, etc.

I was not invisible – I was wearing light jeans, a bright red shirt, white shoes.

There’s just no way to explain away the other person’s behavior except to identify it as vicious, deliberate, and hurtful.

The older white Mazda pickup came towards us at fairly high speed. He was driving close to the edge of the road (unusual when the whole road is open). I stopped walking and looked up at him, as if to make eye contact. He did not waver. I did the only thing I could do, I jumped off the road into the grass/ditch, at the last moment. He didn’t waver; I saw his fairly young face and sunglasses as he sped past.

In some ways, thank goodness the only choice I had was to get out of the way. Had I been holding a gun, or been ensonced in my own shell of steel and rubber, I might have given into the anger and indignation than this intent-to-harm engendered. As it is, I’m shocked and hurt, and helpless. But safe.

The SFChron reports on the man who provided the chili fingertip. The whole affair has been handled by the press about as lamely as you’d expect (hype, sensationalization, etc.) – probably not as bad as Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, et. al, but still pretty bad. But the Chron takes it way into yellow journalism, like something out of 40s-era scandal sheets about Hollywood starts caught in love-nests, etc. Here’s some of the story that seemed most egregious (and let’s start with the photo, above), making the dude out to be as much of a low-life as they can. For no reason, except, hey, it sells papers. This was a front-page story today, BTW.

Las Vegas — After days of hiding, the man whose infamous fingertip ended up in the middle of the Wendy’s chili scandal said Thursday night that his life had been thrown into a tailspin by the case.

“It’s been hell — you don’t even know!” Brian Rossiter, 36, bellowed from behind the door to his apartment at Thrift Suites, where residents pay by the week. He slammed his fists on the door and yelled obscenities as two reporters stood outside.

Rossiter said he had done nothing wrong but refused to discuss the case. He also said he was tired of the media attention and at one point shoved a television reporter before retreating behind the door.

…

Although Rossiter was terse Thursday night, he held court the day before at his favorite watering hole, the Sporting Chance Saloon, where his bar buddies refer to him by his nickname, “Fudge.”

Rossiter showed off his mangled hand, patrons said Thursday, and asked people if they wanted “to shake the most famous hand in America.”

Bar buddies bought him shots of his favorite drink, a cinnamon-flavored schnapps with gold flecks called Goldschlager.

Bartenders said he had gotten belligerent and then cursed his mother, who lives in Pennsylvania and told The Chronicle on Tuesday that her son had given away his fingertip to get out of a $50 gambling debt he had with Plascencia. A friend at the bar had to drive Rossiter home, about 5 miles away.

Ira Byrd, who lives in an apartment below Rossiter, saw him come home around 4 p.m. Wednesday. Rossiter confided in Byrd that he was having a bad day.

“I asked him why his day was bad, and he asked me if I had heard the Wendy’s chili story,” Byrd said. “Then he held up his hand and showed me it was him.”

Rick Fuller, a maintenance worker at Thrift Suites, said he believed that Rossiter would sell his fingertip for money. Rossiter was three days behind in his $175 weekly rent Thursday, said Thrift Suites chief engineer Alan Sneddon.

“Most people come in here with a story, like they lost their wallet,” Fuller said. “Rossiter just said he spent his paycheck gambling. At least he told the truth — that’s unusual around here.”
…

A simple DIY ring

Here’s an easy DIY ring that looks cool and takes seconds to make. In this era of ReadyMade magazine and being green and beauty is where you find it, why not, I ask you? Why not, indeed?

Take an ordinary unopened carton of some beverage. We used Chocolate Silk because it’s made with Real Soy and therefore must be good for you. Open up the screw-top lid.

The freshness seal is what you want. There’s our quarry!

Take the freshness seal off. You just might want to drink some of the soymilk at this point.

Voila!

Lovely. Oops, time for a manicure!