Sneaky Bastard

This is just about the greatest piece of cubicle accoutrement I’ve seen in a while. The editors at Think Geek have written a nice product description for it too. Excellent.

Do you think this would be inappropriate to give as gifts to clients or coworkers?

I get a lot of credit card applications in the post — probably 15 in an average week. I like to open them up, shred the parts with the actual application, and send everything else back in the Business Reply Mail (BRM) envelope. I try to give the USPS all the business I can. Also, I hate credit card marketers so very, very much.

Anyway, I noticed that these direct mail weasels have been printing envelopes with a barcode that is supposed to represent a “Customer Tracking Code” and the text “Attention: It is illegal to tamper with this envelope or its contents.” Um, yeah. Just like any other piece of mail. I assume they placed that there to grant more authority to the barcode nonsense.

So, if this customer code is so official and important, how is it that they send me the same envelope a couple times a week. Can’t they track the fact that I don’t apply for one of their credit cards? Even worse, they should already know that I’m going to send their BRM envelope back with assorted pizza coupons and used Kleenex® facial tissues. Also, I did some searching online to find that several other people have received the same envelopes with the same tracking code. Really? They got one of MY envelopes? Interesting.

The only reasonable explanation for this nonsense I can come up with is this: some marketing jerkoff thought it would be hilarious. I’m sure it was a big hit at the annual Marketing Jerkoff Conference.

I’ve had experience with barcodes in the past, unfortunately. So I know the difference between an ISBN and a UPC. The use of barcodes is pretty interesting from a manufacturing perspective. There are lots of specifications and creative implementations. However, this credit card customer tracking barcode does not comply with any specification I could find. There aren’t any popular symbologies that come close.

Take a look at the printing too. What kind of ‘tard would print a barcode with a halftone screen of gray spot color? Why not go all the way and print it with wavy lines that vary in thickness?

The Breakaway from Cancer ride took place this morning.It rained all night and looked dreary early this morning. As we waited in line to be sent onto the course in waves, the skies clear enough to give us hope that we would stay dry. Bobke was in the first wave of riders to leave the start line. What a character. :)

At the expo area they had an adorable kids rodeo set up, complete with functional stoplights and street markers. Several little cuties were on their miniature bicycles with training wheels riding next to moms and dads. I don’t know what it is about training wheels that inspires such sighs of endearment.

Included with the $75 registration fee was a pretty nice Hincapie jersey that the riders are encouraged to wear during the event. I haven’t seen any stats on the amount of money raised yet, but including the event on Friday night, and Amgen matching contributions, it should be somewhere between $100,000 – $200,000. Notable sponsors for the event were Amgen obviously, Agoura Cycles, Giant Bicycles, Great Harvest Bread Company, and Starbucks, among others. Sorry, I don’t have a complete list.

The picture attached to this blog post is of me ridding through Hidden Valley towards the end of the ride. A pretty nice day after all.

I often see people refer to an Apple Macintosh computer as a “MAC” in all capitals, such as in the following example:

Somebody says that they can’t see this page with a MAC. Can somebody with a MAC test it for me?

I have collected a list of reasons that might explain why a person refers to a Macintosh in this way:

• They think that “MAC” is an acronym in the same way that PC is. What it’s an acronym for, I can’t be sure. Perhaps “Macintosh Apple Computer.” Well that’s a bit redundant now, isn’t it?
• They are yelling the abbreviated form of the word. It’s likely that they’ll append multiple exclamation points to the end of that sentence too.
• The instance of “MAC” appears in a software catalog as in “Versions: PC/MAC” on a product description page. The only possible explanation for this is that the catalog was designed using Microsoft Publisher, and that product doesn’t allow mixed-case characters in a display field.
• They relate three letter abbreviations to the three letter filename extensions they must use in Microsoft DOS. Since filenames are always uppercase, it seems reasonable to have “MAC” represent Macintosh as “WPD” would represent Word Perfect Document in the filename PRODCATA.WPD

If you know of any other possible explanations, I’d be happy to hear them.

I’ve been getting phone calls from DialAmerica Marketing several times a day recently. I decided to answer the phone this time, just to see what they were shilling. So, I hit speakerphone and just listened. I didn’t say anything, I was just quiet. My throat is killing me right now, and I didn’t feel like talking. I just wanted to hear the telemarketing weasel run through his script.

Well, interestingly, the caller said only “Hello, I’m calling for Joseph Lamoree.” and then waited for about twenty seconds. It was quiet on my end of the line. Finally he spoke again:

So, you’re just going to be quiet and pretend that you’re not there. That’s okay. We’ll just call back tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day. And I won’t tell anybody that you’re a rapist who likes to listen.

What a lovely young man. I sure hope he calls back.