Category: Personal Stuff

Canidae on Fire at Circuit City

Here’s an update: Office Depot has actually pulled their ad spots with the disembodied hand. Seems like enough bloggers (including yours truly) called them out on its creepiness to have an effect.

More “me too” advertising, but this one has a couple of twists: it’s a two-pronged “me too” approach. It was bound to happen, of course. Slowly but surely, more and more people know about the Firefox browser. Interestingly enough, though, I’ve found that the name Mozilla is not as widely known. Anyway, I guess Firefox has reached the “buzz” stage. You either know about it and use it (whenever possible) or are burning to know what it is and how you can maximise your productivity with it. Or something.

Anyway, given all the buzz and bally-hoo about Firefox, it was inevitable that someone in marketing would think “hey, how can we invoke something that sounds like firefox, for our product/service?” And that person, it turns out, works for Circuit City.

A little background, for those of you not overly familiar with this “Circuit City” thing. If you want circuit boards and resistors and stuff, you might instinctively think “Circuit City”, but you’d be wrong. You’d have to think Radio Shack for that instead.

Circuit City is a chain electronics/entertainment store. You go there to buy CDs, DVDs, games, car audio, home audio, tv’s, and so on. Best Buy is another such chain. And the reason I mention Best Buy is a simple one. A few years ago, a company called Geek Squad got acquired by Best Buy (b2evo won’t let me link to it). The brand is marketed very well (I can not speak to the service provided, as I have no experience with it, nor do I know anyone who has). Essentially, they’ve taken the idea of geeks and brought it somewhat mainstream: geeks as heroes and saviours, if you will. They must be doing fairly well, because it’s been at least 3 years, if not more, and the company is still around and still being marketed fairly aggressively. Here’s the shtick: their army of geeks patrol around in black and white VW beetles and will fix your problems on any day at any time (they also have geeks at the ready in the store, I believe).

Circuit City, then, pulled off their double me-too whammy when they launched their Firedog service. Here’s the shtick: their army of people patrol around in black and green Scion xB’s to fix your problems. You can call them on any day at any time, and they probably also have, um, firedogs at the ready in the store. The fact that they’re trying to associate it with dogs in firehouses doesn’t even make sense, so let’s dispense with that excuse right now.

You know, I don’t necessarily hold copycatting against companies. If executed well and marketed well, I think they’re fine. A good idea is a good idea, and if it works for you then kudos. So, I’m not against Circuit City offering this service. I’m just sickened by their marketing of it. The service is what it is: Geek Squad had a great idea and they capitalised on it. Circuit City saw that and decided to offer such a service to their customers as well. So far, so fine, so good. That Circuit City would then brand this service as “firedog” and then go “well, Geek Squad has VW’s, we’ll have xB’s” and think that sets them apart is just laughable.

So, Circuit City, how many marketing droids got a raise out of this?

As for the commercials, they’re just silly. It’s full of people taking their pet dogs to be retrained, because said animals do not know what “Vista capable” means, or some other such nonsense. My advice: cut your losses on this ridiculous marketing campaign and get a new ad agency fire[dog] the old one. It’s probably too late to rebrand firedog as something more sensible, but in that case take this gift: go with the whole fire/emergency motif and actual firedogs.

All About the Benjies

I’ve not blogged in a long time, I see. Forgive me, dear reader, for that. In fact, a lot has been happening in the week since my last post. In that time, I’ve been poring over the job boards, looking for something to do. I admit, I’ve felt a little discouraged and slightly dejected owing to the lay-off, but life, as they say, must go on.

So, I’ve been doing all sorts of keywords searches on those sites to find things that interest me, and discover how things I’m passionate about can become things that I can make a living out of. And, of course, I’ve been sending resumes out like mad (I’ve not had any callbacks or emailbacks yet). That is really why I haven’t blogged, and why I haven’t worked on any of the django websites, which really need to just get finished at this point. I’ll tackle those this weekend and try to at least get 3crowns out of the door.

So, my passions. Funny (not in a ha-ha sense) story: Last summer, I googled around for some of my old high school chums. I’m sort of in touch with a few — one (who I’ve known since 6th grade) directly and 3 indirectly. I had found that my friend Gordana is doing some cool and major stuff in the world of Art. I thought she’d be in the UN or in politics or something while we were in school, but I guess I’d just taken for granted how great she did in Art class. Well, we exchanged a couple of emails and we got to talking about being passionate about what you do. I never responded to her, because I hadn’t figured out exactly what that is. So a four-month late reply is about to go out to her. Told you it wasn’t funny.

It turns out that I am, apparently, one of those people-people. I said it, it’s now out there: I’m a “people person.” Once the shivers are gone when I say that, the truth begins to sink in. I joined gentoo and I became its evangelist not by technical achievements (there’s no bit of programming that I can point to and say: “there, see that piece of genius? I did that.”), but rather by softer means: I had some great ideas (cascading profiles and g-cpan come to mind). I didn’t have the technical oompf to actually code those things up. However, when I found the right people who could, I knew I’d found them (that’s an indirect shout out to Mike).

And I realised that that’s what I’d been doing at Gentoo. I did it well enough, though I certainly stumbled quite a bit along the way. I’d been building teams. That’s been my modus operandi: find a weakness, apply a band-aid, find specialist surgeons to fix it and strengthen it and build upon it. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, here, please understand that. I’m just airing my thoughts of the last few months. And then, there’s the fact that my blood runs with devrel. That is to say, even though I’m not formally really a part of DevRel any more, I still do devrel type things (lately it’s been talking developers out of leaving the project). That’s just my nature, I can’t help it. I’m not alone in that, mind you — it takes that kind of person to be in devrel (which is a shout out to Bryan and to Ferris — wasn’t there some pop star named Bryan Ferris back in the day, by the way? Have I stumbled upon a conspiracy?).

And, of course, there were the linux world expos (though not really with the more recent ones) where I took the reins at interacting with booth visitors and attracting people to the booth. Some might remember me dragging some Malaysian television crew to the Gentoo booth to cover us.

So what does this all mean? All that stuff made me deliriously happy. Well, not all of it is happy (the leaving of devs, for example, sucks mostly), but it’s all what I do. That’s just who I am. That’s what I need to be doing. I don’t know if there are any corporate titles that cover that sort of thing (and pay well) or not. I don’t know what those titles are, either.

So with this present job search, after the initial round of keyword searching, I decided to try and hone in on some of the industries I’d like to be working in. I don’t think I want to work in the linux industry (such as it is), because Gentoo fulfills that need more than amply. But when I think about the kinds of products and services that excite me, then we start to see a picture forming.

Airlines, for example, I feel very strongly about. I love to fly. I love being on airplanes. I love everything about the flying experience, and on non-American carriers, I love the food. Airline food is probably my most favourite type of food. Too bad you can’t really go out for that sort of thing. Or, heaven help you, order it in. Anyway, yeah, I love the boarding, the pushback, the taxiing, the sitting on the ground during delays, the line up, the take-off (I LOVE the take-off), the cruising, the drinks, the food (did I mention the food?), the movies and music, talking with fellow passengers and the cabin crew when they have some down time, the slowing down, the landing and touchdown (I LOVE the landing and touchdown, and pulling to the gate. I’m not so thrilled about the steps following that. This, after 32 and a half years of flying continually (my first airplane ride was at 6 months old). A relaxing time for me is watching the airplanes taking-off and landing. I love watching the approaches. A couple of years ago, there was an internet feed of KSFO airport and I used to have that as my background, er, music while doing Gentoo things. I didn’t understand most of it, but it relaxed me to listen to the air traffic controllers interact with departing and approaching flights. I hate seeing people off (I love seeing them come in), but I think that’s a tinge of jealousy that I’m not the one boarding the aircraft.

Needless to say, one of my categories for search is now Airlines/Aviation. Whether or not I can score a position there that is mutually suitable remains to be seen. And yes, I’m picky. I’d rather work for the cool airlines like Jet Blue and Southwest (if we’re talking American carriers). Those have a people focus to the way go about things. They have a courtesy and general respect for their clientele, which is lacking in most of the other domestic carriers.

I’m not sure yet, which other products/services I feel strongly about, but I’ll start noting them down as they occur to me. I know they are there, I just need to tap into my brain to get at them.

Branding and Loyalty

Ignoring, for a moment, the conjunction of those two words with respect to cults and organisations (and some fraternities), I’d like to share some thoughts about branding and loyalty in airlines. As you, my dear readers, might recall, Aimee and I had gone to Los Angeles and Oklahoma for Thanksgiving (late November), and then to Jamaica for Christmas.

Well, as it turned out, we had two starkly contrasting airline experiences. For the first trip, we booked all the flights on Southwest airlines. Southwest is well-known as a budget airline. On the flights you get pretzels and drinks galore, which is fine. You don’t pay much, and you don’t expect much. That, and when you get a boarding card, there are no seat numbers on it. You just board (at the right time, because passengers are placed in different zones) and then pick out a seat you might like. Aimee and I tend to prefer the rear of the aircraft, which is not a popular destination, but very very convenient (except if you’re in a hurry to deboard at the end of the flight). Southwest, however, exceeded our expectations. Without exception, all the cabin crew members were friendly and happy and smiley. They were courteous and not once did I see even a hint of a frown. This, despite some of our flights being completely full. And, on another occasion, populated by a noisy bunch of high-schoolers (noisy being the keyword, because they were a very nice bunch of students — headed to LA for a marching band competition (and by the way, some of them played bagpipes, which is simply the coolest thing I’ve ever heard)).

Anyway, the cabin crew: they were also really funny. The ones making announcements always had a funny quip like “if we expected a water landing, none of us would have shown up to work today.” And one of them called the plane the “Love Chub” which is just hilarious.

While I’m gushing about Southwest, I just want to compliment them on their choice of new livery. That old brown/beige/orange scheme just had to go. It was ugly and made their planes look ancient and rickety. I can’t wait for the rest of the fleet to be redone. We even saw Shamu at LAX, which was very cool.

Oh right, I have a point with all this. For Christmas, we booked our flights on the fairly pathetic USAir. The preflight experience (booking, check-in, boarding) was normal and fine. Friendly staff, quick service. Onboard, however, is a different world entirely. I believe one of the cabin crew members even had a scowl. For heaven’s sake, it’s a public facing job — put on your public face! They just wanted people to sit in their seats and get ready to go, because we were running late. What they forgot was that it wasn’t the passengers who caused the delay — the aircraft arrived late. We, the passengers, were just working with what we had. So, lots of down-talking and PA announcements about “please don’t waste time in the aisles — place your bags away as quickly as possible and sit so that we can leave.”

Once airborne on the 4 hour international flight, they serve the requisite peanuts and soft drinks. Here’s the kicker: for lunch, you get a choice of a salad, or a sandwich or some sort of snack box. Now, Aimee and I had gotten up mega-early for this flight so we basically skipped breakfast, and the flight to Philly was too short to have anything to eat. It was that first flight that was late. So in Philly we had enough time to go into the next plane, and that’s about it.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the snack box. All three items could be had at the, um “bargain basement” price gouging cost of 5 dollars. I get it, we’re in the air, you have the monopoly, if not the sense of customer service. Fine, we think, we’ll shell out the five bucks each for the salad, because we’re basically starved. We’re in the rear section (not the very back, but about 10 rows in front of it). By the time they get to us, the only thing left is this mysterious snackbox. We bought one, even though that was simply ridiculous. In it: a bar of candy, a breakfast bar, and nachos and processed cheese or something. Basically, nasty pre-packaged stuff that USAir probably gets for free to promote those products anyway — they just have to provide the “box” part of the snack box.

So, you open your tray table and what do you see? Not a tray table, but a freaking advertisement for Verizon. I paid money to sit in a seat and look at advertisements (this, by the way, is also what disgusts me about movie theaters these days, but that’s a different blog post) for four hours. Five dollars is a magic number on USAir: that’s coincidentally how much the cheap ass earphones cost (we did not, don’t worry).

So top it all off, they ended the flight on a very inappropriate note. The pilot, when announcing our imminent landing procedures, proceeded to inform us about what a great deal the USAir credit card is, and the number of miles that you get for signing up? Excuse me? How about you just fly the fucking plane, ok? Tell me the local time and temperature and other interesting tidbits I can’t see out my window. Don’t pimp.

Needless to say, I’m willing to now pay extra to explicitly not fly USAir. Air Jamaica feeds you well, I hear.

This was a pretty long rant: sorry about that.

The End of a Short Chapter

Before we left for Christmas vacation, I found out from my boss that the Developer Relations Manager role that I’d been filling for the last few months was going to be dissolved. The reason for this is that the company’s focus is shifting to be more in line with its revenue and other goals for this year.

Well, today (Jan 2) was the day that that happened, so as of this morning, I’ve been laid off. I wish I could say “easy come, easy go” but this one was not so easy to come by, so I’m pretty sad to have it go. I’ll miss working there and I’ll always wonder what would have happened to the DevZone and other outreach stuff that I planned for this quarter (like the 12 articles I’d been working on).

I’ll say this: I enjoyed my experience in marketing, and I certainly hope that my next job opportunity will allow me to continue to grow in that direction.

Wish me luck.

Health Wrap-up: 2006

Remeber all those fasts I did last year?

Well, I had a final blood test (well, for the year, anyway) a few weeks ago — right before Christmas vacation — I also had an appointment with my doctor. Anyway, here’s the long and short of it: my liver enzyme levels are completely normal now, as are my cholesterol levels. At some point, I’ll scan in all my reports (the relevant sections) and put them up so that interested readers can actually trace the progress. Now, I’ve been feeling really good for a while, so I did drink just a little bit while we were in Jamaica.

Now, I know, there’s a bit of interest about the Jamaican holiday: I promise I’ll put up some photos and a more complete report of the vacation up, but I’ve got a few pressing things to take care of before that. While there, I did not take advantage of the business center (to be honest, I don’t even know where it was located) so I was away from computers for an entire blissful week. I did blog, however: I did low-tech style. I pencilblogged! Or would it be waterlogged? I dunno, something. Anyway, I’ll transcribe that up for your reading pleasure in a few days or a week or something.

Like I said, I have some other pressing matters to take care of, and I’ll clue you all into that tomorrow at some point. Sorry to sound so mysterious, I’m not trying to, I just have a lot on my mind.

Here’s a shout out to Vinanda and Ayona for getting back in touch with me (I grew up with them). All hail google, I suppose 🙂

The Master Cleanse: PostScript

Well, I definitely did not do the cleanse for long enough, this much I know. The statement is true for last time as well. The first indication of this: my tongue was still pasty white when I quit on the 11th day. I actually quit halfway through the day, for several reasons: some social (I need to meet with some people this week over meals), and some not (I have a blood test on Friday, and I want my body to “normalize” — no fake gluten allergy thing). The other reason: the day after I quit, I’ve gotten two or three pimples (one pretty big). It’s as though there are toxins still wanting to get out, and that’s the route they took.

Of course, this could be bullshit, and hormone levels could have just cycled that way co-incidentally. Let’s go with that theory for now, because it’s the saner one. Aimee wants to do the cleanse, so we’ll do it together in March-ish. From here, I’m aiming at a 21-day Cleanse then. She’s looking at 10 days. I’m looking at return to pink tongue. I opted out of the liver flush this time, but I’ll do another one of those upon our return from the Christmas break. Sorry, political correcters, that’s what we’ll be celebrating (yes, I’m not Christian, but I’ve always celebrated Christmas my whole life).

The Master Cleanse: Day 10

Well, the last day came and went. My tongue (writing this on the morning of Day 11) remained white throughout Day 10, signalling at least a Day 11 on the fast in my immediate future. I don’t really feel hungry any more. I mean some stuff sounds good and I want to eat it, but not physically — there’s no craving. It’s a mental, “I’d like to eat cheesecake or chocolate mousse or both sometime soon” thing. I did the flush in the evening, and that went well.

We went to the grocery store to restock on lemons and maple syrup. And of course, the one we went to didn’t have any organic lemons. So we had to go to another one in Arlington where they usually stock organic lemons. And of course, they were out, too. So, I’m stuck with “regular” lemons for the duration of this fast. Aimee went out for Indian food to the Dhaba yesterday. She didn’t want to bring any food back, but at this point, I’m way over it. The smell of food doesn’t do anything for me. We passed by a Bertucci’s in a mall yesterday. It actually–get this–smelled bad to me.

Gross: I’m still “eliminating” like a freaking madman. This, without ingesting anything other than lemonade, salt water, senna laxative tea. So, perhaps it really is toxins. I mean, 10 days without solid food and I still have eliminations? That’s crazy.

The Master Cleanse: Day 9

So here’s the thing. I’m bothered and puzzled. I’m puzzled by the fact that even though I haven’t had anything to eat, and I haven’t been flushing consistently (see the two days I missed), I still have to go to the bathroom every morning. I don’t what the reason is — perhaps, I’ve been steeping my senna tea for longer periods this time around (10-15 minutes). Either way, I wake up every morning with cramps/pains — not fun, let me tell you. I didn’t flush again this morning because we woke up late and had to run to the malls to wrap up Xmas shopping.

I’m bothered by the fact that my tongue is even whiter. My last day of this cleanse is day 10 (the day I’m writing this entry), and my tongue is showing no signs of being pink. I fear this means at least another day or two of fasting. I can hack it, but it’s definitely interesting.

Speaking of interesting — I’d gained 4 inches in my waist in LA and Boston. I’m now back to a 33″ or 32″ waist! That’s pretty exciting. All that running and cleansing seems to be paying off!

The Master Cleanse: Day 8

Well, I had to flush in the evening on Day 8 again, instead of the morning, because of an early morning appointment. So, something strange. I was going to blog today that my tongue remained pink throughout the fast. Alas, that is not the case. On Day 8, my tongue has turned white. This can’t be goodness, because that means this fast goes beyond Day 10. It takes like 3 or 4 days to get it pink again. I’m not craving anything specifically, but I am looking forward to getting off the fast so I can sushi and Indian food and pie and chocolate cake and ice-cream. In different sittings, not all at once, obviously.

Oh yeah, the city we live in has some weird strange parking rules. They don’t bother posting them, you know, on the street, or anything. No, you learn the rules by getting tickets. Apparently, in winter time, regardless of the weather (we haven’t had any snow to speak of), you have to park on one side of the street or the other. So last night, a whole bunch of cars, including Aimee’s, got $10 tickets for parking on the wrong side of the street. We’re going to fight it obviously, because you can’t just ticket people for some hidden rule/law, this isn’t Soviet Russia, sheesh.

The Master Cleanse: Day 7

Day 7 went off fairly well without a hitch. I did the flush thing in the evening, and it worked for the most part. However, I only wound up drinking 5 glasses of lemonade instead of 6. And I’ve discovered something — the fast isn’t what makes me cold. The flush is what makes me cold. I don’t know why, but there it is.

I can’t believe 7 days have gone by already. On the one hand, I can’t wait for day 10 to arrive. On the other, I feel I could do it for another few days, maybe another week to 10 days. I even had thoughts of Arks (as in Noah’s, you know with the 40 days thing). I won’t, though, at least not this time. Perhaps next summer, though. This time around, since Aimee and I are heading out to a tropical island for the non-denominational holiday beginning on the 25th of– Christmas holiday we intend to eat, man. Yeah, we’ll be chowing down at the resort, I can tell you that.