Sweet Dreams Are Not Usually Made Of This

Many great ideas occur to people through dreams.  The DNA structure, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Space Invaders, the Twilight series, Yesterday, Every Breath You Take: they all came from dreams.

And last night, I found inspiration.  I dreamt that I moved my cell phone to my right pocket, and switching my wallet the other way.  It makes perfect sense since I hold the phone with my right hand, but I hold my wallet with my left hand so I can reach into it with my right hand.  I would have preferred an iconic song melody, but you have to take what the subconscious offers.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About The Future #6

J K Rowling, Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer and Stieg Larsson all become household names – as authors!

Too Cool For Fools

There are signs up in our buildings instructing people not to use their air conditioners, because it is too cold.  Today, it was a high of 6°C (that would be 43°F) which has me asking the obvious question: what kind of an idiot is still running their air conditioner in this weather? 

I was amazed enough at the start of summer when they needed a sign telling people to keep their windows closed when the AC is on, and not to set it lower than 19°.   That's pretty cold: no one I know is as bothered by hot weather as I am, yet I'm perfectly happy to keep it set at 24°.  I can't imagine why any non-penguinoid lifeform would want it that cold.

So this is another in the I-can't-believe-they-have-to-tell-people-that file, along with:

• clean up anything you spill in front of the garbage chute
• don't throw anything off the balcony
• don't let your dogs do their business directly in front of the entrance.

In Sickness And In Health, Through Grinding And Slow Dances

I was at a wedding this weekend. I won't talk much about it because I make an effort to protect the identities of my friends and family in this blog.  It's pretty much the only way bloggers are like Spiderman.

But I will mention the dance.  I heard some critiques of the DJ's work, but personally I have some sympathy for wedding DJs.  After all, they have to satisfy several concepts, like:

• get the oldies out of the way early in the night while the parents and grandparents are still there.

• fit the trendy dance songs in there

• get old, formerly trendy dance songs in, since those are the ones post-adolescent guests will recognize

• for similar reasons, any song with dance instructions in the song are encouraged

• along those lines, "Time Warp" is still acceptable, but "YMCA" is too clinched (at least until late in the night when everyone is plastered)

• get a lot of the slow songs out of the way early in the evening.  Everyone is still full of love, and there are enough people around that the singles sitting out won't feel too conspicuous.

• adults are picky, having gotten beyond the dance-to-anything attitudes of high school and college, so try to put songs of the same type together to keep everyone on the dance floor
• for similar reasons, resist the urge to satisfy all these rules through covers, mash-ups and medleys, that will just confuse people (again, until later when everyone is smashed)

• try to give a nod to the couple's tastes in music, even if it's death-metal

Keep Calm and Approve This Message

Awhile back I did some spoofs of the ubiquitous "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters.  I didn't do an American version of the poster, due to the polarised nature of current American culture.  It's hard to condense a country down to five words at the best of times.  So instead I gave each half of the country its own poster, advising them how to deal with stress:

And, for the swing states:

I'm Literally Brought To You By...

I just read this article in Wired about AdverCar, a company that will pay you to put ads on your car.  I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering why it's taken so long for this to happen.  I would have thought that in trying to think up new things to put ads on, cars would have come before bananas, gas pumps, and public restroom cubicle doors.  Unfortunately it's not nearly enough to pay for the car,but does help with gas money.

I was discussing this with someone years ago, and they pointed out (prophetically, apparently) that the weakness in the plan is the location.  The advertisers will want to know where you drive, so that they can target ads and figure out how much it's worth spending on you.  And that leads to the problem that sinks a lot of ad-sustained businesses: anyone poor/cheap enough to want to sign up for this service is probably not worth advertising to.  If you're desperate enough to drive around in a car with "I'm lovin' it" across the hood, you probably don't have much disposable income, and probably don't live around anyone else who does, either.

Really, the only way to make advertising on cars work is if you syncronized it with Nascar.  It sounds stupid to drive a car covered with M&M's characters on it, but if Kyle Busch does it first, that makes it okay.

Vive le Premier!

Recently, these posters appeared around downtown Kitchener:

Now that's just weird.  If you have any idea what point they're trying to make, I'd like to know.