A play on words

Cleverest headline of the week:




















By the way, would anyone actually pay to see a play on words? I say only if it was a razzle-dazzle musical called "Semantics!"

Google has got your number

Google unveiled their new blog search tool today. Now at lightning speed, you can find the number of blogs referencing:

• rats humping in a wool sock: 2
• free kittens: 638
• Comparisons of the ex-FEMA chief to The Office's Gareth: 33
• The phrase "You are SO not invited to my bat mitzvah!": 7
• Bush AND hero: 17,761
• Bush AND evil: 50,298
• Tasty AND Kakes: 89

Life imitates The Office

When Gareth says it, it's funny. When the head of FEMA says it, less funny. From Time magazine's How Reliable Is Brown's Resume?:

"Brown's biography on the Federal Emergency Management Agency Web site says he had once served as an "assistant city manager with emergency services oversight"....

However, a city spokeswoman told the magazine Brown had actually worked as "an assistant to the city manager.""

"The assistant is more like an intern," Claudia Deakins told the magazine. "Department heads did not report to him."

And now he's going back to Washington to oversee future disasters. Because if anyone deserved a lateral move, it's this guy.

If you could see it then you'd understand

Should a concert contain note-perfect performances of an artist's best-known tracks, or should they try variations to breathe new energy and passion into the songs? I just came back from a Coldplay show, and I don't know the answer.

It's good to be able to sing along, but the rocked-out "Clocks" was much more rocking than the other tunes, which were replicas of the album versions--to the point where Chris Martin started over on two songs after messing up. At least it was live, but it's ok to miss a note or fiddle with the phrasing. Else it's just a CD listening party with a fancy light show.

Is there anything they don't know?

Models predicted New Orleans disaster, experts say

That's Armageddon

Among the top five headlines on My Yahoo page:

• New Orleans in chaos, Bush calls disaster historic
  
• Hundreds killed in stampede near Baghdad mosque
  
• U.S. deaths in Iraq in August most since January
  

Or in other words:

Prescription

More cartoons drawn on the back of business cards.

The night b-school got hard

When people ask me what I'm learning in business school, I can usually tell them. The above has something to do with Competitive Advantage from Operations. Beyond that, I'll have to get back to you. And until that day comes, I will never be allowed to be in charge of anything.

Once you go wet

Kandoo, the new tool in the war against smelly kids, is in stores now. I wonder at what point in the marketing brainstorm process did Procter & Gamble say, "You know, how about using an ass-wiping frog as our logo?"

Are frogs renown for their pristine rectums? Did the focus groups really respond to a self-wiping frog rather than, say, a camel? And "Kandoo" - do kids need to be empowered for this?

I am a recent convert to wet wipes myself and have come to insist on them wherever possible. Yet I find them in few households. Do they have a stigma because they're used foremost on babies and old folks?

Instead of making wipes more appealing to kids, maybe Procter & Gamble should work on a witty, urbane wiping mascot that speaks to our generation. They could call them "Buttlers" to bring in the frat boy demographic or "Asstastics" to appeal to urbanites.

Pippi Hotstockings

The original Girl Gone Wild

What I've been watching/reading/hearing this week:

• Flickr.com has a new Most Interesting feature, updated daily, based on what gets the most hits, comments, links, etc. Some really incredible photography, like this, this, and this, that makes me wish I knew what to do with my life camera.
• Guess-the-Google (via Bob Jingle) - A montage from Google Image Search appears and you guess the search term. Harder than you might think.
• Ben Folds rocked Brooklyn to its hipster core last night. The fact that guys like him can sell out concerts without radio or MTV airplay redeems my faith in humanity. And as a marketing guy by day, it shows the power of the Internet to let artists bypass the mass media filters and connect directly with their fans. Without being on his email list, I would never know that he had new albums or was performing in the area.
• My friend Ian spent at least part of Wednesday eating two donuts. At said concert Thursday night, he gets two girls' phone numbers. We could all learn a lot from Ian.