Archive September 2008

An interesting survivalist article from someone in Argentina, who has been a preparedness type in a society that broke down, here. I find it quite interesting that he didn't make a big deal of what seems to have actually been the single most important thing in his setup, a really good fence. I suppose because that's the part you don't ever really see having an effect, since the effect is to deter conflicts before they even start.

And a bit of humour, a TV announcer advertising Terminator being on later; "offers a bizarre solution to the abortion debate - kill the mother, not the unborn child. Sarah Palin take note." [12:51] [6 comments]

I saw perhaps the most brilliant graffiti I've ever seen, the other day. In huge letters, on the back of a KFC billboard, primarily visible from the KFC parking lot, simply "OBESE?"

I've also been seeing a lot of 'tagging' sort of graffiti, the rubbish three letter gang initials or gang name every ten feet sort of thing. The only one of these (that may or may not be one of these) that I find more amusing than annoying is the one that's all along the length of Matilda Street, repeatedly declaring in large letters, "POO", each with a nearby picture of a Mr Whippy style steaming turd.

But for the rest of the tagging graffiti, I wonder whether that sort of vandalism would be dissuaded if some counter-gang were to go around at night finding tags and appending to each of them something offensive to the gangs but not to any reader. Something like, eg. turning every instance of "SBK" into "SBK is childish." Even if it didn't discourage tagging, it would at least make the graffiti more amusing to passers-by. [10:55] [0 comments]

Tuesday 9 September 2008

The Corn Refiner's Association has started advertising High Fructose Corn Syrup on American TV, with this ad, and another similar one. I think this is probably a good thing, for two reasons. First, it means they're worried by the amount of demand for products without HFCS, and second, I can't imagine how the ad could possibly not backfire. Surely nobody who makes the effort to avoid HFCS is going to be convinced that they have no reason to object to it by an ad depicting someone else not being able to come up with a reason? And the other ad is even worse, with the positive argument being "it's alright in moderation". If that's your selling point, you have a problem. So, minimal effect on people who already avoid HFCS, and then people who don't already avoid HFCS are generally totally unaware of its existence. The ad is going to change that. Is that going to make them consume more of it? No. Is it going to make some people question it? Maybe. I hope so.

Anyway, that's all beside the point. The real reason for me making this post is because I just keep on laughing at this subtle alteration of the ad. [23:49] [1 comment]