19.9.06

Product Conundrum

Wrap your head around this, dear readers:

A couple of years ago, one distributor - let's call him A4 - drops by the store to tell us about this wonderful now product - let's call it product P - that he's selling. Product P, he tells us, is made by people that used to work for another and vastly inferior brand that makes product S. Now, product S is made in China just like product P, but product P is the object of a whole lot more love, care and quality control than that generic, made-for-the-money product S. Ok, we say, we'll give product P a chance. You can never have too many affordable thingamajigs in your store, anyway. We already have a few product S's in the store, so it'll be fun to see if product P sells better, we say.

So, time passes, and we sell very little of product P. We try it ourselves, and it's certainly not bad - however, the same can be said about product S, really. We don't think about it too much, and go back to selling product R which everyone likes (both us and the customers) and we sell heaps of.


A month ago, distributor A4 sends out his regular, longwinded and bloated information e-mail about new products and such and guess what: he's dropping product P. It didn't sell as good as expected, and they want to focus on a new, and much better brand. Can you guess which one? Ah, yes: product S, of course. Yes, product S is now elevated to the status of product made with a whole lot of love, care and quality control, while product P - which was previously in this glorified position - is now thrown down in the dirt.


And people wonder why product PR (in all forms) make me giggle. Teehee.

Oh, and anyone who can figure out which products and which distributor I'm talking about will get the wonderful prize of absolutely nothing. Which, coincidentally, is roughly equal to the substance and integrity of said distributor's sales pitches. *giggle*

15.9.06

An ode to the laundry room

15.09.06: An ode to the laundry room magnify
Oh, laundry room:

Where the good inhabitants of your apartment building meet to socialize and engage in friendly banter; where strangers' eyes meet in brief moments of forbidden desire or unabashed disgust; where the intelligentsia gather to plot their next reality-altering scheme (such as keeping the laundry closed on Sundays and thus making sure nobody can do their laundry on the only day they have the time to do so); where the janitor's notice board is constantly covered in a glorious mix of complaints, questions and nonsensical, semi-poetic dabblings.

Where quiet battles are fought over who booked the dryer first or stole someone's bleach;
where little old ladies will gently persuade you into letting them have the washing machine for
another 30 minutes (and nobody says no because it would be like saying no to your own
grandmother), thereby nudging the already rickety booking schedule into a magnificent
collapse; where socks disappear into thin air, only to manifest themselves four months later
in a tattered, washed out state after having been stuck in the dark realms of the leftmost
washing machine where not even the keenest of eyes could see them, or strongest of hands pry them free from their ever-rotating iron cell; where the principle of "love thy neighbour" is put to the test every day as you find your clothes strewn all over the usually less then squeaky clean laundry room floor.

Where creatures big and small - of both the human and non-human kind - roam freely among the comforting warmth emitted from the large electrical mammoths that leave our laundry in a state of variable decontamination; where the strong, concrete walls block all cell phone reception and leave you blissful isolation from the brouhaha of the outside world (and prevents your mum calling you and nagging about that thing you were supposed to pick up somewhere).

Oh, laundry room - my life revolves around thy existence and thy etheric booking system!
Oh, laundry room - may thy electricity never be absent, thus leaving my clothes wet and full of detergent!


(I really, really need to get my own washing machine.)

8.9.06

Unwords!

(Disclaimer: This blog entry is mainly composed of things copy-pasted from Unwords.com. I know some people frown upon this kind of creative laziness, but it's Friday - sue me!)

I love words. Big ones, small ones, strange ones, funny ones - they're all friends to me! Now, sometimes words evolve (or degenerate, depending on your point of view) into new words and then they end up on Unwords.com - a super-duper site for new breeds of words! I've taken the liberty to list a few of the entries here, to whet your appetite for more...

Destinasia - a. (n.) Going upstairs or downstairs and being unable to remember why.

Disconfect - a. (v.) To sterilize the piece of candy you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, somehow assuming this will "remove" all the germs.

Docuphobia - a. (n.) The fear of using documentation, usually resulting from some previous traumatic event such as programming a VCR.

Drylowgraph - a. (n.) Any strange, unintelligible symbol that accompanies the washing instructions on clothing labels

Malbingophobia - a. (n.) The fear among some bingo players that they have incorrectly marked a square, and calling "bingo" could cause them not victory, but public humiliation.

Meandrathal - a. (n.) Any person in an exhausted state of mind in which they wander aimlessly, sometimes with low blood-sugar, in a shopping mall, video store or the like.

More words at Unwords.com - go there now!

4.9.06

A waste of space

Two minutes ago, I realized that none of my MSN contacts where online and I felt a sting of loneliness and abandon - like being locked out of the playground, or not chosen for the "cool" team for the soccer match.

Then, I realized that realizing this was all rather sad - borderline pathetic, some might say - and filled my cup with coffee and started writing this blog entry.

Alas, while writing this I realized that spending time, energy and precious blog-space on this specific theme was indeed a bit sad aswell, and most likely a good indication of my current state of blogger's writer's block. So I'll stop, right here.

Too late now, anyway.

Meh.

1.9.06

A blogger's lament

Dear readers of late,
I bring saddening news:
My blog's in a state
of writer's block blues!

So this Blogger entry
(though rhyming quite well)
is quite elementary,
as I'm sure you can tell.

It's not so by choice,
or fate, if you will:
For uttering my voice
is usually a thrill.

It's not that I'm lazy,
or tired or sad,
it's not that I'm crazy
(or ate something bad).

The reason my site
is lackluster and dull,
and lacking in bite
when it should have been full:

The reason is this
(and I hate to admit) -
I have nothing to say,
and thus nothing to submit.
----------------------------------
(Ok, so that last line
didn't rhyme all that well:
I don't always refine,
but at least I can spell!)