…you had ONE JOB…

For some reason, I have been really bothered by something lately. Not like, you know, my whole life’s focus has narrowed down to this ONE THING kind of really bothered, but still…bothered.

And it’s this: Somewhere out there, right this minute, someone is being paid actual money to come up with a subject line for an email campaign.

And that person, after due consideration, is going to come up with something along the lines of, “HURRY!!! ONLY FOUR MORE DAYS TO SAVE!!!!!!”

Or, “You won’t BELIEVE the DEALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

…really…? That was your best shot?

…really-really…?

Maybe it’s just me, BUT…well. Put it this way: I have a handful of half-arsed rules set up in Outlook to catch “obviously spam advertisements” that my gray mail tool can’t seem to identify. 

The out-of-the-box gray mail scanner gets maybe 10% of the junk.

My handful of rules get about 85% of it.

Which is another whole rant, ESPECIALLY if we factor in how often the ‘professionally designed by actual email-coding-people’ scanner MISSES the spam but decides one of my ACTUAL HUMAN FRIENDS is CLEARLY a dangerous entity who needs to be BLOCKED…but let’s stay on topic for now.

Every time I take the fast-scan through the junk folder my rules automatically move those things to, I get perversely irritated about not the fact that they exist in the first place…or the fact that I feel obligated to at least glance at them in case I accidentally shunted aside an actual email from an actual person…no.

It’s that the thought inevitably occurs to me: Somebody was paid to come up with a subject line for that spam, and proceeded to come up with one that was so cookie-cutter that my half-arsed Outlook rules could identify it immediately as being, well, spam.

You had ONE JOB, man: Come up with a subject line that would catch my attention and make me go, “Huh, that might actually be worth opening…”

…and you came up with “HURRY!!! ONLY FOUR DAYS LEFT TO SAVE!!!!!” (<= two string-based rules broken, “starts with ‘hurry’”and “more than two exclamation points in a row”, tsk-tsk-tsk…)

Now granted, it wouldn’t be easy to come up with an endless supply of clever, interesting subject lines for such campaigns. There’s only so many ways to say “we are having a sale on stuff! you should totally check it out!”

And also there’s the fact that I often fail to remember that not everybody in America shares my interest in language.

I mean, I use words like ‘obfuscatate’ in work emails. <= exactly like that, with a hyperlink to the definition so nobody has to ’fess up if they have no clue what it means.

BUT, the one thing I do know is that everybody else is just like me: If you’ve ever bought even one thing online? => you’ve got a zillion-and-five spam emails coming a week. 

I cannot possibly be the only person who has become downright glassy-eyed about it. Or the only person who doesn’t even pause to look at which retailer is sending them. The subject starts with ‘Hurry!!!’? nope, we’re DONE here…{delete}

C’mon guys. Hire some people who know how to make words sing. Give some aspiring novelists a day job. Give ME a break.

And who knows? Maybe you might even get one or two more of the elebenty-gazillion people whose inboxes are bloating up with these things to actually open it, if only in the hopes that the ad-text won’t be the usual blend of ‘exciting’ ‘fashionable’ ‘best prices of the year’ every other ad has been for the last forever plus fifteen years…

Short Term Memory Loss Strikes Again (repost)

[Thanks, ellipsisknits!]

One of the (many) things that irritate me when I go forth among my fellow creatures is the way we can forget things we’ve learned almost instantly.

A few months ago, right before the end of the school year, one of the fathers pulled up to the curb in a shiny almost-new Navigator. He was so danged proud of that vehicle, it could almost bring a tear to your eye, truly.

He boasted about the deal he’d gotten on it, wrangling thousands off the sticker and getting this awesome loan rate and so forth and so on. Seriously, folks, you don’t see that kind of interest rate on a used car, no sir, that was his mad skilz at work, there…plush seats and surround sound…it was a road master on that commute, let-me-tell-you…

Beautiful vehicle, but at the time I remember looking at it and thinking, Hmmm.

I have a little experience under my belt with large vehicles, and I tell you what: Filling up the tank on the old full-sized van was painful enough when we bought her in 1997 – when gas was $1.37 a gallon. (Let’s just pause a second to think about that, shall we? Of course, I also remember when I paid $0.89 a gallon to fill up the TWO FULL-SIZED TANKS on the full-sized van I owned before that one…dang…now I feel OLD…)

So I looked at that shiny almost-new Navigator and thought, Whoa. 35 gallon tank, 12 miles to the gallon, gas heading over four bucks any second now…that sucker’s gonna bleed you dry, son!

A few days ago, we ran into him in the gym parking lot. I was unloading the girls from Homer the Odyssey, and he was…folding down the seat of the Hyundai Accent so Junior could get out. Whoa, how the mighty have fallen...!

“Hey, got yourself a commuter, huh?” I called out as our children ran screaming to each other. A lot of us do that out here, have one BIG vehicle for the family and a little one for the commuting. In fact, here in the Den we have the Odyssey for family-driving, and a Civic for anytime we’ve got fewer than four people heading out.

“Yeah, well, I had to get rid of the Navigator,” he muttered. “You wouldn’t believe it…I got my gas card bill that first month, you know? It was over $2,000. TWO THOUSAND BUCKS, man!”

“No way.”

“Swear. It didn’t get any better, either. So I took my wife’s car to work and she took the Navigator, but even that, damn, she was filling it up every week, right? So it’s still over $600, you know? So we ended up just, you know, parking it. And then we talked about it and I took it back. And we traded it for this thing.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. Most expensive @*^&@ing Hyundai in the world right here – I owe $35,000 for this piece of @*^&@.”

Whoa. I bought a used Hyundai Accent about five years ago for $5,000. The idea of owing that much on a used Accent about gave me stomach cramps. My Hyundai sure was easy on the gas, though – I regularly got over 40 MPG in that little thing. Manual transmission, power nothing (which got rough, actually – you take power steering for granted until you’re doing a two hour daily stop-n-go commute without it for a few months), barest boned vehicle Hyundai had on the market. It’s sole luxury was air conditioning.

While I was smiling softly to myself remembering my little bright red commute-buddy (long since donated to Habitat for Humanity, when the need for a second “commute” car vanished), he was exhibiting his stunning (and yet all-too-common) inability to remember What Had Gone Before.

“And now gas is coming down,” he went on. “Damned if it isn’t coming down. I probably could’ve kept that Navigator, you know? Or at least gotten a lot more for it…we tried to sell it ourselves, you know, but nobody would even look at it. Bet if we tried to sell it today, we could’ve gotten something for it.”

My first impulse was to say that no, no they couldn’t have sold it now. People aren’t that short-sighted. Gas prices dropping from $4.60 to $4.25 isn’t going to be enough to make people say, “Oooooh, it’s over! Let’s rush out and buy a new SUV!”

But as I thought about it…he’s probably right. He probably could find a buyer for the Navigator more easily right now than he could have last month, when gas was, you know, forty cents higher.

The short-term memory loss humans exhibit on a daily basis is stunning, especially when we’re used to things being one way (gas is more or less affordable) and then they suddenly change (holy crap, I can’t afford to drive to the supermarket!), and then they give a slight hint that they might consider going back to the way they were (I still can’t afford to drive to the supermarket BUT! I am a dime closer to being able to! Let the good times roll!!!!).

Maybe this is just a symptom of my career choice…but I can’t help noticing trends. Gas prices spike and fall all the time…but overall, they trend up. Here. Let me show you a chart…



(Source data from Energy Information Administration website.)

This shows the average price for a gallon of rot-gut regular in California from January 1995 to present. It spikes…and sags a bit…spikes again…sags again…but what does it do overall?

Goes. Up.

That trend will reverse only when we don’t care any more – when supply outstrips demand, not just here in the US but globally.

I expect the devil will need ice skates right around then. Just sayin’.

And by the way – this same conversation has gone on every six months since I was a kid. Gas spikes in summer OH MY GAWD END OF THE WORLD and sags in winter whew about time those @*&^ politicians DID something about this!, and spikes again (!!!) and sags again (…).

But. Do we ever, you know, learn? Do we say to ourselves, “Gee, you know what? When I first started driving, gas was under a buck a gallon…and now it’s over $4. Hmm, what does this say to me, hmm, thinking…thinking…”?

Oh, no. We’re like ducks. We wake up in a brand new world, each and every day. Gas goes up, we run screaming that the sky is falling. Gas goes down, we run around screaming that we so totally should’ve gotten that Subdivision with the moon roof and the triple-play sound system, ARGH!

Give it six months. Same person will be saying, “Yeah, sure am glad I didn’t get that Subdivision, seeing as how gas prices have shot up like they have…”

Gas prices coming down? When did that ever happen? No, they go up and only up…wait! They came down! ARGH! I shoulda gotten that Subdivision!!

I love my fellow man, I really do. I just sometimes wish we could, you know…think about tomorrow with what we learned yesterday in mind, and act accordingly today.

…sure might make that tomorrow a ton better than today, ya know?...

Dude…wait…what?

Sometimes, I really find myself sitting here saying…What the ever-livin’ @*^&@*?

Maybe it’s just that I haven’t had my coffee yet. Perhaps this will make sense after I’ve had some caffeine.

Help me out here, people.

Our Golden State is, once again!, in the throes of a budget crisis. Not only are we a tad short of what we need to fund all our stuff (our state motto really should be: Living Above Your Means Is Beautiful), but our beloved representatives can’t get their collective @*^& together and put together a budget that at least gets cash flowing again.

So naturally…the solution would be…to tell State employees that they’re taking a haircut in the paycheck department down to the Federal minimum wage of $6.55 (which in California wouldn’t allow a guy with five roommates to afford a one bedroom apartment, for crap’s sake) (OK, I may be exaggerating just a tad…he’d only need four roommates…) until such time as the budget is passed?!

Oh yes. This is one of the things Ah-nold proposes. It’ll save $1B a month!

Maybe…if I stirred a little acid into my coffee…this would make sense?

Say. I’ve got another idea.

How about if our representatives take a daily pay hit for each day the budget is not passed? $1,000 shaved off their annual take for each day they don’t get their crap together sounds good to me. Let’s see, each one of them would have lost $24,000 this year already! What are there, 120 of them jostling up there? I just saved the state $2,880,000! AND @*^&@ING COUNTING!!

And this before I’ve even had my coffee, folks!

Sigh.

I’m gonna go get my coffee now. Maybe I’m still asleep. Yeah. That’s gotta be it. Caffeine will fix this.

And if that doesn’t, maybe squeezing my eyes shut, ramming my fingers in my ears and screaming, “LA LA LA LA LA!” will.

And if that doesn’t…I may have to pen a sternly worded Letter of {SMACK! DOWN!} to Ah-nold and my beloved leaders up there in the Assembly and Senate.

Heh. Sending furious emails to 121 people. “FEAR MY SPAM OF OUTRAGE! FEAR IT!!!!!!!”

Yeah. Coffee. NOW.

…what a helluva thing to wake up to this morning…{grumble ‘hey thanks for working for the Golden State – here’s your paycut! Don’t worry, we’ll catch you up LATER…’ grumble SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!!!}

A moment of cursing

I am a gentle person, really. Live and let live, that’s my motto. I try not to judge other people (shut up, I do too try), and I try to accept that other people have other views. Other positions. That they come from different backgrounds, and that what I consider to be absolutely unquestionably the right or wrong ways to handle things may not be viewed the same way by others.

I do not tend to fling ill-wishes and other invectives at other people, is what I’m trying to get at here.

That said. My Irish is up, and it just can’t be stilled.

I don’t curse often. But when I do?

I really mean it.

May a curse follow those who broke into the home of my friend, the dear one who takes such good care of my children, who does so much good for all her life touches, who works so hard to keep her family fed and clothed and warm.

May the feet that kicked in the door wither into uselessness, that we may know them by their limps.

May disease and blight afflict every part of them which touched her things, her few and precious heirlooms, her little children’s jewelry…and even their tiny lost teeth. From the eyes that gazed with greed to the hands that seized to what lies beneath the pockets they likely stuffed them into, let them be afflicted and pained and useless.

May the hand that took their Christmas and birthday presents shake, unable to hold cup to drink or bowl to eat.

Bad cess, bad cess, bad cess, let it follow them now and always, until they find shame and amend what they have done.

Hallelujah.

Amen.

(We are looking after her. She is one of our own, and we will not allow her Christmas and that of her children to be ruined by these…unspeakable…PAH! There will be presents and there will be new doors and if these people ARE caught they’d better pray to GOD it is by the police and not us. Do not @*^&@ with the Celts – or our kin, or our kith. ‘Using our words’ is all well and good, but personally I don’t think I’d pass up the opportunity to take a hurley to the lot of them!)

Found her

Here’s the source of the poster I saw, it was the little girl whose caption reads “She thinks she’s ugly”:



Much as I hate to publicly declare just how sappy I really am – it makes me cry. The idea that any of these children could possibly think they are anything less than just right makes me sick.

And I know they do. I thought I was an ugly child, and carry that with me to this day (no matter WHAT my mother says about my cuteness and/or beauty and/or adorability). I was scrawny, freckly, had an overbite you could drive a hay wagon through, STUPID hair and could never stay clean for eight minutes at a stretch.

And I’m keenly aware of each and every one of my imperfections today. My wrinkles, my skin damage, my moles and zits and dandruff. The ‘mommy apron’ no amount of diet or exercise can budge even a quarter inch. Not even threatening it with a tummy tuck can make it shrink, which is saying something because I am a terrible coward and the very idea of going in for “elective” surgery, surgery I’d have to pay for out of my own pocket no less, makes every other part of me shrivel in horror.

I don’t worry about it much because I figure – eh, it’s not like it matters, I ain’t no supermodel nor am I trying to attract a mate – but even given a lack of ‘worry’, do I find myself utterly wanting in the beauty department? Even turn away from the sight of my nekkid self in the mirror, dash past it like it was a firing squad? Did I, in fact, remove a mirror from a shower caddy because catching glimpses of myself in the shower made me queasy?

Oh yes. Do, and did, and probably would again.

But you know what?

This is me, shutting up. I’m not going to sit around the common rooms of the house bemoaning my post-four-rapid-fire-pregnancies belly floppage, or scowl at my wrinkles and wonder aloud if perhaps it might be time to make an appointment with a laser while my daughters stand at my elbow…watching, listening, observing, imprinting.

Or my son, for that matter. Does he need to be taught that women should be running a constant marathon, chasing after youth and beauty and ‘perfection’ without cease? That it’s normal to be a basket case about it? That there’s something wrong with a woman who says, “Eh, whatever. I’m a healthy weight and none of my warts are cancerous – good enough for me!” and leaves the mascara and hair gel and takes back those hours of her life for other things?

Not from me he doesn’t.

Not from me.

p.s.: SHARE! Share away! I'm so sick of beautiful women thinking they aren't because they don't look like something out of a soap opera...let's talk, let's be real, let's share and discuss and maybe, just maybe, we can take away one ugly untruth from our lives.

Baby, you’re so beautiful

A long while ago, I was walking up to the prescription counter at the local pharmacy when I was smacked between the eyeballs by a poster. A positively adorable child with a caption that read, She thinks she’s ugly.

Have you ever wanted to wrap your arms around a stupid poster and argue with it?

How can you ever think you are anything but 150% beautiful, baby?!

Oh. Of course. Because you don’t look like someone from the cover of Cosmopolitan (check out Jezebel’s coverage of a magazine cover) (they use Certain Words in places, mom – you have been warned!) (that said, if you can stand Those Words, check out the ‘numeric’ depiction of the changes – hysterical! And yet, tragically, they ring so true to life…).

Naturally, you think you’re so ugly that mirrors may crack from the hideous impact of your image.

There is apparently a raging debate out there about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. People can’t decide whether they love it or hate it. Neither can I. On the one hand, I appreciate any assistance that can be given. On the other, well. “Maker of cosmetic products tells girls and women they are not ugly – and here’s a coupon for fresh-scent refinishing crème!”

But for this commercial alone I’d say they were worth a look:



Take a good look. THIS is what we buy into. THIS is what sells magazines, and cosmetics, and fat-busting pills, and deodorant. THIS is what we’re trying to duplicate when we smear goop on our faces day and night, pay for microderm abrasion treatments, flit from product to product searching, searching, searching for that little vial which will transform us, finally, from hideous crawling worm to glorious butterfly – like the lady in the picture.

And this is what our daughters see. This is what our precious babies look at, too, what they compare themselves to, what they want their little nine year old bodies to be.

Show your daughters. Make sure they know: Nobody looks that good, baby. Not even her.

And you, dear child?

You’re so beautiful you make stars look dim.

Without a single click of the mouse…