David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 109

Dim Sum Animated Gif!!!!

Dim Sum animated gif!!!!!

Thinking of milking this animated food thing for a whole week. I could do it. I go to that many different types of places regularly.

Ethiopian Food Animated GIF!!!!!

Ethiopian food animated gif!!!!!

Now I want Ethiopian food.

I’d Still Try The McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce If It Was Sitting There

I’d still try the McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce if it was sitting there.

I wouldn’t stand in a huge line for it, or pay hundreds of dollars, but I’d try it.

Ad Juxtaposition Is Important

Ad juxtaposition is important. I was thinking about a tennis tournament my wife was watching one time where I simultaneously saw text displayed on the court for Rolex and Kia. If I were Rolex, I would have been ticked.

Sure, people pay for getting the product name in people’s minds. However, what goes with that in people’s minds is important. Rolex makes sophisticated products, but a certain portion of their pricing is based on mental image.

That image kind of needs to be luxury.

I do not think of luxury when I think of Kia. I’m sure they sell fine cars, but I think of them as economy cars. Rolex, on the other hand, makes me think of gold and platinum. Set the two next to each other and I think less of Rolex and more of Kia.

I hope Kia paid a lot more than Rolex for that ad placement.

Looks Like Market Street Station Is Going Away

Looks like Market Street station in downtown Denver is going away. The block is all blocked off by fencing and various construction things are starting there. It hasn’t been used as an actual station in quite a while, replaced by the expanded Union Station and run as a parking garage for quite a while, but it looks as if the whole thing will actually come out now.

Just a tiny bit sad.

After all, it isn’t as if it was anything special, no turn of the century stone construction or anything. It was just some ordinary perhaps 60s, 70s, 0r 80s blank sort of place. Still, that was my first arrival point into actual Denver when we were visiting to move here years ago. I lived by there for many years and walked through there almost every weekday for a long time. It was where I went to get my bus passes, and to start trips.

It’ll just be weird to have gone.

It Was Difficult To Give Up Trick-Or-Treating

It was difficult to give up trick or treating. I hung on trying until I was 17. I loved it, but that wasn’t exactly why I’d hung on so long. I think it was actually because it had been so long since I had a trouble free year.

17 was the last. Halloween 1993. A group of friends wanted to go, one or two kids in the group as young as 13. They had no issue, but the adults were starting to yell at the older ones of us. Started to refuse. That put the nail in it. Things were tough enough given that it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit and we were out for a while. I wouldn’t have probably been so committed to that night if it hadn’t been for Halloween 1992, where I had some foster home stuff going and wasn’t exactly able to go out.

1991 wasn’t any better. There was a blizzard and the mayor tried to cancel Halloween. How can you cancel a non-governmental holiday? He did though, due to there being a blizzard. 5 inches of snow or so. Me, a friend, and some kid my friend knew tried to go out anyway. In all the snow. It wasn’t easy, and few people were handing out anything. One lady yelled at us that the mayor had cancelled Halloween (I wasn’t fond of that mayor anyway). Then my friend’s friend had an asthma attack and didn’t have his inhaler. We had to stop at a place that let him call his parents to come and get him. That pretty well ended it.

1990 wasn’t too bad, just not great. It was a school night though and the friend and I that went out in a costume pair (hostage taker and hostage, him the hostage) didn’t go horribly far. Then I went home to watch Pumpkinhead. It wasn’t as bad as most of the adjacent years, but it wasn’t like the years of memory. 1989 was worse though. Seriously grounded for some stuff I’d conflicting with my parents about, my dad let me go about a block or so. That was about it.

1988 was one of the best. Went out for forever. My mom got some supplies from the nursing home she worked at as a nurse and I dressed as a bag of medical waste as a Calvin and Hobbes homage. Wore a pair of snow boots for some reason that I don’t remember, since it wasn’t snowing.

That one was a good year. I probably tried to recreate that for the next six years and only finally gave up when it was abundantly clear it would never happen again.

Conspiracy Theorizing About The Szechuan Sauce

I’m seeing a lot of different things about the Rick and Morty Szechuan sauce McDonald’s thing. People surprised at the fan reaction (as if something almost exactly like that for limited supply goods doesn’t happen over and over and over again), people who think it shows fans don’t understand their own show (as if people simply didn’t understand that it was a symbol of pointlessness rather than just thinking the whole thing was funny and deciding to take it seriously anyway), all that. I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I had to wonder how much of the fiasco was accidental.

After all, I hadn’t seen a huge amount out there about the promotion. I certainly heard of it, but it struck me as odd that I hadn’t heard more and sooner. The idea seemed to be to capitalize on the buzz from the incidental mention on the show, but the effort seemed low.

Then the debacle. I stopped by myself, but they weren’t going to be giving out any sauce until 1 that day. I wasn’t willing to wait around, or even really in line for any length of time. I was willing to try to grab some on Ebay, but nowhere near what it would have taken. That was all before I found out each store only got 20 packets.

Think about it though. It would have still taken some money to fully advertise that promotion, even capitalizing off the buzz of the show. There was some coverage that they were doing it, but only so much. However, there was enough to get people there for there to be a debacle. The free coverage of the debacle was stellar. Even Wendy’s helped. People LOVE a debacle. They can’t help talking about it. Sure, it wasn’t good coverage…but that’s when they announced that they had simply underestimated the demand and would be bringing it all back at a later date with supplies that would meet any possible demand. Hmmmm, I wonder.

Step 1: decide to capitalize on pop culture reference. Step 2: Let the buzz from the pop culture reference do your advertising for you. Step 3: Pretend to screw it up. Step 4: Wait out the bad press from the screw up. Step 5: Let the bad press from the screw up advertise the real promotion.

This may have been the idea all along. It sounds awful convoluted, but to get this kind of campaign for this little an amount of money? It’s not impossible, and all they risked was the business of Rick and Morty fans. Maybe the possible return was worth the risk.

It’s all just a thought, but I can’t help thinking it.

Now Is The Winter Of Our Uncertainty

Yay! It’s that time of year again when we have absolutely no idea what is going to happen! Last night I heard 4-7 inches of snow was predicted for today. It was supposed to start about 11 and continue for a long while. When I woke up, the streets and sidewalks were just wet. There as a small amount of snow on the rooftops, grass, and trees. Wheeee!

Seriously, there is no way to know from the forecast what will happen. 4-7 inches? Maybe. Maybe only in Broomfield or in the foothills. Maybe 4-7 inches of fall but zero accumulation. Maybe they’ll predict an inch and we’ll get a foot here in the city.

There is no way to know. I hear everything and prepare for whatever, but each morning I just get up and look outside to see what I see.

It’s about all I can do.

Let Me Go Back Almost 20 Years To When I Would Care About That

I just heard that AOL was finally killing off their Instant Messenger. Hold on, let me go back about 20 years to when I would care about that.

Hold on.

Seriously, I was honestly surprised to hear that Instant Messenger was still around. I’m even surprised that AOL is still around, in any form. I last used Instant Messenger in 2000, about 17 years ago. That’s the last time I had AOL, because I was using it free, and I only used Instant Messenger because it was there. Now? Well, it seems like there’s a dozen other programs I could use to do the same thing…presuming I wanted to talk to that many people that much, which doesn’t seem likely.

Guess at least some others must have thought the same as me or else it’d keep going. Just hard to see why it hung on so long.

Because Sometimes You Need To Watch The Mr. Ed Theme Song

Because sometimes you need to watch the Mr. Ed theme song:

Granted, now is probably not one of those times. Later probably isn’t either. Still, sometime. Gotta be sometime, right?