Tetherd Cow Ahead

Mark my words: Google is the Roman Empire of web colonization, and the beginning of its decline is already being chalked in big letters.

Honestly, their rise in profile is commensurate with their increase in stupidity. I’ve talked before about the impending disaster of the Ne’er-Do-Evil, but consider this latest piece of idiocy: Google’s lawyers have taken action against several media organizations in an effort to stop them using the word ‘google’ as a verb unless they’re referring directly to a search made on the Google engine.

HELLO GOOGLE! IS ANYBODY HOME?

I almost wept at their daftness. Well I would have, but it’s hard to pull the kleenex out of these damn velcro pockets without making a mess. And everyone knows that tiny bits of kleenex are almost as difficult to hoover up as styrofoam or q-tips.

Did Google somehow just forget which century they’re living in? Do they actually read anything online? Did someone remove the word ‘ubiquity’ from the Google Law Department’s dictionary?

Google has, up until recently, had everyone believing that they have grokked the internet paradigm for Century 21, but in this startlingly moronic lunge for control over the idiom, the concepts involved seem to be running off Google’s lawyers like jello off teflon.

Discussion over at Joey’s place reminded me I hadn’t seen the Swedish Chef in an awfully long time.

Why is something this stupid so funny? Or is it just me?

Y’know, sometimes the modern world is just so bizarre that you really hope someone must be having a good ol’ chuckle at someone else’s expense.

Take the case of mobile phone manufacturer Mobiado, teaming up with perfume company Bissol to create Bissol No. 919 a ‘fragrance for the luxury mobile phone user‘.

WTF?

I don’t think I could have dreamed up that concept in my wildest moment of sarcastic surrealism.

Here, from the press release:

No. 919 is a clean, fresh, youthful scent with top notes of mandarin, juniper berry, elemi; middle notes of white musk, bamboo, oakmoss; and base notes of vanilla, cedarwood, sandalwood. (Mobiado Limited Edition) also has a special addition of Australian lime note, formulated for the elegant mobile phone user.

How is it that Australian Lime, whatever that might be*, bestows some extra power on elegant mobile phone users, whatever they might be?† What the hell is a ‘luxury mobile phone user’ anyway, for that matter?

There certainly is a very strong smell through all of this alright: something like a base-note of fish with a pungent lingering odour of bullshit…
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*Most likely, this is a species of Queensland lime called the ‘Gympie (pron: ‘gimpy’) Lime’ which possibly explains why Bissol has opted for the more general description ‘Australian’

†I guess from now on, at least, we’ll be able to spot them by their smell

Spam Observations #25

My pal Bert wrote to me this morning opining that:

Life Should be Full of Luxuries….

And then:

Yes, only a handful of people can afford the finest products, the luxuries of the elite. But, here at “Luxury Replica” we are committed to bringing you the finest products, at prices incomparably lower.

Now Bert, you’ve come all unstuck in yer logic there, fella. The Oxford Dictionary defines a luxury as ‘an inessential, desirable item that is expensive or difficult to obtain’.

But you are saying that I must have these products and are promising to provide lots of them for cheap.

See where that all falls in a heap?

I’m pretty tolerant of religious beliefs, even if I don’t agree with most of most of them. As far as I’m concerned, people are entitled to believe whatever they like as long as they don’t indiscriminately inflict those beliefs on other people. Or expect other people to even take them seriously for that matter. Unfortunately the adherents of some religious groups are just way too pigheaded to realise when they are being offensive. Either that or they simply don’t care.

So it’s a beautiful Autumn Sydney morning, blue skies, crisp cool air, red and yellow leaves all over the road. I’m walking to work listening to my iPod thinking what a glorious day it is. And then I notice that some skywriting company is making the best of the still air and scribbling something across my field of view. During the next five minutes it becomes clear that the word they are writing is ‘Jesus’.

Now I really take exception to this. On two counts in fact: one because I don’t particularly want anything being written in this beautiful pristine sky, and two because I especially don’t want someone foisting their religious beliefs on me in this irksome manner.

I’m sure these zealots have some misguided self-righteous idea that we will all have a better day knowing Jesus has made his presence felt in our skies.

I bet they would get really ticked off if someone like me was to use skywriting for some judicious personal proselytizing.

Be afraid. Maybe I just might…

You know how restaurants charge you corkage for uncorking a bottle of wine?† What are they going to charge you for now that wine bottles are using screw caps a lot more frequently?

†This ridiculous practice may not occur in other countries.