Better Marketing

Finally, someone in the media states the bleedin' obvious, that Apple is a much better advertiser than many of its competitors. Case in point, the ads that Motorola have been running for its new Xoom tablet are, to put it mildly, a big cluster. Instead of following Apple's lead and simply (but elegantly) showing you what their product can actually do for you in eveyday life, Motorola has decided to eschew such money-making ideas, and instead opted to show you how, once activated, their Xoom tablet will transform into a spaceship that will surround you and fire its jet engines as it hovers above the ground. Or something.

How some folks make it in the advertising world is beyond me. True, some rather annoying and confusing commercials actually seem to work for some companies, but it's looking like the Xoom tablet isn't among that elite. And while some wacky ads are kind of cute, and definitely memorable, they don't really tell me about what the product being sold actually does in real life. Whether it's a talking lizard, an insurance agent appearing like a genie after the recitation of a jingle, or a computer tablet turning into a spaceship, these commercials may amuse me, annoy me, or make me go 'wow' at the special effects, but they don't do much to sway me toward the product being advertised.

And isn't that the entire purpose of a commercial?

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Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing). It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.

To the beat of his own Drum

Tonight I learned that Kevin Drum has died. He passed away on Friday, March 7th, from Multiple Myeloma (the same illness that took my uncle Paul several years ago). Drum's diagnosis came in 2014, and he talked about it openly on his blog , up to and including just a few days before his death. I knew of Kevin Drum through his blogging. During the early aughts, when I started to become more politically aware and involved, I began reading certain online musings by folks -- Andrew Sullivan and, on a local level, IlliniPundit, to name a couple. Drum's blog at that time was Calpundit . Eventually, he began blogging at Mother Jones . When they parted ways, he started what would be his final online venture. So, yeah, I've been reading Kevin's musings for over twenty years.

Left to my own devices

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