accident inducing billboard

dubai is a fairly safe city to drive in. it's not as safe as, say, a german city, mind you, what with the cab drivers and abu dhabi drivers, but the other day i nearly crashed into a car next to me because i was craning my neck following a billboard. alas, it didn't have a hot girl, it had a clever little ad utilizing letters common between words to create the synergy of being home and roaming. it was scrabble-tile words, one saying "home" the other "roaming" with the m at the intersection. not terribly original, but at least readable. what nearly caused my crash is the same sign in arabic. to those not familiar with arabic, letters are always linked up when used in words (sorta like cursive in english), but it's worse because the letters' shapes actually change. you know what that means to the silly billboard?

it means when the scrabble tiles have arabic letters in them, the words are almost impossible to read.

which brings me to my point: why the fuck do we translate commercials? not everything goes across between english and arabic well. hell most things don't go well at all. and with the cleverness and wittiness in the world of advertising, the problem is duly compounded.

so for god's sake, if you're into advertising, be creative and create campaigns for arabic!

charming stormtroopers

poor stormtroopers are always made fun of online - but this is the first time i see a site this insulting! darth vader must be livid!

a new omega watch

behold this lovely watch from omega. notice the mesh metal strap? it's shark-proof. you know what that means? it means that after the shark has bitten off your hand, you can rest assured that your watch will still be there.

taking pride

proud, adjective
1. feeling pleasure or satisfaction over something regarded as highly honorable or creditable to oneself (often fol. by of, an infinitive, or a clause).
2. having, proceeding from, or showing a high opinion of one's own dignity, importance, or superiority.
3. having or showing self-respect or self-esteem.
4. highly gratifying to the feelings or self-esteem: It was a proud day for him when his son entered college.
5. highly honorable or creditable: a proud achievement.
6. stately, majestic, or magnificent: proud cities.
7. of lofty dignity or distinction: a proud name; proud nobles.
8. Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S. pleased; happy: I'm proud to meet you.
9. full of vigor and spirit: a proud young stallion.

how great is that word? isn't it something that is associated with grandeur? achievement? sort of like when one liberates a country or saves a human being. it conveys honor and truth.

it's certainly not something you use when describing that you serve a specific type of ice cream, or coffee.

all over gitex in our city dubai, visitors are drinking starbucks coffee from poor, misguided shops that all "proudly" brew starbucks coffee. one place is also proud to sell haagen dazs ice cream. can someone please explain to me where the feeling of pride comes from in serving coffee? it's not like it's a charity that helps deprived inner-city kids, or a campaign to eradicate cholera in africa, it's fucking coffee and ice cream. you're not proud to do that, you just fucking make money. fucking hell people wake the fuck up.

marketing people

from a shampoo bottle: "calms, nourishes and sleeks unmanageable hair" then as a highlight "helps control coarse, rebellious hair".

is it just me or does this sound like a medicine that is used to treat a hyperactive 5 year-old?

oh, and the same people referred to a watch as "truly unique". yeah, yours and the thousands of others that were made.

dr know it all

i must admit, before i continue, that although this phenomenon is most prominent in american tv, it'll really happen in any country, due to the fact that people, in general, are sheep. so please, help me out here, since when do doctors practice on tv? i'm talking about that asshole in scrubs who is featured on oprah who gives sermons on everything from gastronomical pains to the latest flu scare. you're a fucking doctor. you can't possibly be a specialist in all these things. that either makes you (a) a liar, so your advice is really yap yap or (b) incompetent, meaning that a trained earthworm can do what you do on the show. i do, however, concede that you may have a life outside tv. after all, you're only on the show every couple months.

what really riles me up is that complete show called doctors. they diagnose people and give advice on tv every week.

seriously? are they pretty boys (and a gal) who failed at their practices? surely a successful surgeon doesn't have the time to shoot a weekly show. who are these monkeys and why should we listen to them? and the problem is that people do listen to them. see although this originated in the us, it will work in any country because people are, well, sheep.

note: dr phil is borderline in this case, because while he poses to be a doctor and listening to him may cause an increase in blood pressure and the urge to gouge one's eyes out, he doesn't give any real medical advice. he's like a grumpy grandfather who finds losers and explains to them why they're losers. i once heard he's like a detective interrogating people. police drama never hurt anyone.

harry potter - college freshman year edition

my aching head woke me up. i could tell it was morning - light was seeping through my eyelids - but i had no idea what the time was. i didn't want to risk antagonizing my throbbing head with a sudden rush of sunlight, so i kept me eyes shut, steadying my nerves for opening them.

eventually the promise of caffeine and nicotine inspired me to risk getting up. i rolled over away from the window, dangled my feet over the side of the bed, and slowly peeled my eyes open. i squinted, attempting to reduce the influx of electromagnetic energy onto my retina, and was able to keep my eyes open without my brains exploding. i took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, inhaling deeply, forcing my mind to concentrate on something other than the pain. my hand alternated between holding the cigarette to my mouth and massaging my temples. lightning on my forehead or not - alcohol gave me a hangover like any other guy.

last night was slowly coming into focus. that was one hell of a freshman welcome party. then two things happened simultaneously: i noticed i was naked and i was startled by the sound of someone stirring in my bed. whipping my head around wasn't the wisest of my moves that day - exploding pain - but neither will it prove to be the dumbest. i hadn't noticed her there, but hermione lay in my bed, her hair all over the place. fuck, my head hurt. i fell out of bed, in the process nearly setting the room on fire when i dropped my smoke. i'm guessing the sound of my fall and my constant repeat of fuck, even under my breath, eventually woke her up.

"where am i," were her first words, eloquently followed by "what happened?"

then she saw me sprawled there, wearing a facial expression that i'm sure could've been described only as dumb-struck, and nothing else.

"why are you naked?"

in addition to hangovers, alcohol generally causes slowing down in the thought process. i fumbled around the room looking for my boxers, still muttering the word fuck over and over again, while it slowly dawned on her why i was naked. she took a peek under the cover and realized that we were both naked, and started chanting the fuck mantra with me.

ever wonder why meds are so expensive?

well there you have it:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/plos-dis010208.php

a little dated but valid nonetheless.

career magic quadrant

i was reading a book the other day, and one of the characters was a lawyer. he was pondering the idea of how moral he was, how he bent the rules, and it got me to think of what that means, and how different professions treat the matter of morality differently. in addition, it got me thinking that there are different levels of belief in the morality of what is done - surely the carpenter doesn't think about the meaning of what he does as much as the policeman might.

so how do we summarize this? in a magic quadrant. i stole the idea from gartner, but it works pretty good here. i wonder if they'll sue me. there is one thing i'd like to add: how the belief of the individual differs from the view of society, but i couldn't keep the graph simple and add that info. alas, it will have to work without it.

in any case, let me explain the axes and the meaning of each.

the horizontal axis describes morality. on the right lie the professions that are truly ethical, with their motivations and rewards being uncontroversial and generally agreed upon. to the left are the consequentialism, whose ends always justify the means. the means are almost always questionable and the ends are narrowly and selfishly beneficial, if that at all. those in the middle carry little or no moral value attached to their profession.

the vertical axis is how deeply the professional believes in his or her morality. to the top are those who strongly believe in the (a)morality of what they're doing, whereas at the bottom are those who cannot decide - or to whom it doesn't really matter. in the middle, of course, are those who, in terms of morality, don't feel much about what they do at all.

enjoy (click to enlarge).


update: there seems to be some confusion on the issue of the axes. my bad. the horizontal axis is the objective overview of the morality. the vertical axis is the subjective belief of the professionals.

want something fun to do?

just drink water from a bottle. drinking from it is even more fun than drinking from a normal water.

http://www.camelbak.com/drink-study

wtf age is this that describes water drinking as fun?