A great bit of Disney's imaginative copywriting

YaYa spends time online on a Disney roleplaying game where you live the life of a cartoon animal. Last week her online pet, 'neglected' for a few hours, ran away from her character's home. 

This is the email sent to the site's support staff:

My puffleball ran away. how do i find her?

The response came yesterday, and I reproduce it here because of its imaginative approach to her problem.

Hello,

Oh dear!  I can help you find her.  Puffles are really great pets, but
sometimes they get bored if you don't visit your igloo very often to feed them
and play with them.  When a puffle gets bored it is likely that it will run
away.

The good news is when your puffle runs away it almost always runs back to the
pet shop to be with other puffle friends.  If you go visit the pet shop I am
confident that you will find your puffle there.  You will need to purchase her
again and teach her her name again, because puffles can be very forgetful
sometimes.  Once you re-name your puffle it will appear in your igloo.  Make
sure to take very good care of it this time!

If you have any more questions please feel free to write in anytime.  Have a
fun day!

Sincerely,

Leah F
Club  Support

Wow. By implying that it simply went back to the pet shop the letter calms any fears and guilt the kid might have over the pet.. It encourages you to buy a new one, the only true way you're going to walk away with a pet, but convinces the child that it's the same familiar - if amnesiac - face. It even works in a mild scolding and a lesson on how to take care of their pet.

So YaYa got a new online pet, convinced it was the same one that left her, and all is well.

My hats off to that copywriter. Great job!

Some answers to your Questions

I want to thank everyone who participated in the site survey a few days back. (If you haven't, kindly scroll down the main page and jump right in).

It appears I skew towards an older, female audience that is nicely distributed geographically. Not exactly the coveted 'male 18-39' target group, but even so an audience I am quite happy with, thank you very much.

As for everyone who was quick to jump the gun and assume the paid blogging spot was a sure thing, well it isn't. I spoke to my friend yesterday as we walked a 2.8 mile route - well, tried to talk, between deep, labored breaths - and he admitted it didn't look very good.

He was still going to talk to the company but all the current slots are filled and a new one is unlikely to emerge. Still,  I prodded him to give it a shot and argue some of my strong points - a proven 3.5 year track record, nearly 800 posts proving I have no shortage of filler at my disposal, and the abiltiy to self-edit, keeping private stuff private and my content on-target and appropriate for my average reader.

(such as the post about the bushes. The orginal title was 'way too many pics of a big bush', but you didn't see me run with that title on this  family-friendly blog, now did you?)

So we'll wait and see.

Meanwhile I think I'm going to take that offer to scribble a weekly 'male Erma Bombeck' article for a community newspaper. It doesn't pay much, but it's more than I make writing now, that's for sure. I'd originally turned it down as being charity, but they've hounded me long enough now that I think they have a genunine interest in the column.

Eh, who knows.

To answer some questions posed in the comments and emails related to the survey:

* Do I think my 'style' would change? Nah, not really. By and large I'm rather a cocky wiseenheimer in print. That tends to show through in everything I write. The exception, of course, would be in documents where that would be innapropriate - such as political analysis and eulogies.

* Would I 'sell out'? Heck yeah. Give me a check and I'll write about the glory of the Chicago Cubs and how I think that Kurt Cobain guy was over-rated. It would hurt, but I'd buy something to ease the pain. :)

Mind you, evenually I'd abandon it for 'pure' art, casting it as my 'dark commercial period', like Johnny Depp's years on Jump Street or the skin flick Stallone did before Rocky .

* Do I write for myself or for an audience? Honestly, an audience

Think about it: on Slapinions you don't read about my work, my innermost fears, the names of my kids, my real last name, embarrassing details about extended family, or my sex life (you're welcome). By default, I automatically edit this blog for the eyes of (largely) anonymous strangers.

 I don't think I'll ever stop writing, in some way, shape, and form, even if no one ever read a word I wrote. That's been the case before, was the case for much of my life in fact.

But even in that scenario I'd fall victim to what Stephen King calls 'writing for the ages' - the little voice in your head that says every word you commit to the page will one day be revered, whether read now or not.

Say mankind was about to die out. Before it happened a magic genie appears and says to me that only one document would survive The End, only one scrap of writing to tell the universe 'we were here'.

The choice, says the genie, is between the Declaration of Independence or half the grocery list I wrote yesterday on the back of a matchbook. Now choose.

In which case, rest assured dear reader, the aliens from Gamma 5 are going to be asking what 'Tuna Helper' tastes like.

* Would I still write here on Slapinons if I was paid to blog elsewhere? Sure, I think so. Scalzi kept Whatever running while AOL paid him to do, well, this. I certainly think I can handle the vice-versa.

Again, as always, thanks for reading :)

Bleepin' Home Improvement Salesmen

You know, I'm starting to get a little insulted by all these contractors who stop by my house to solicit work.

Yes, I know the roof is old and has seen better days. That's why wer're looking to replace it. Yes, I also know the windows are old enough to have seen FDR's first term. Thanks for pointing that out. And thanks ever so much for leaving the one thousandth home improvement flyer on my screen door.

But the kicker? The lawn service that stopped by last year with a flyer advertising a $19.95 special,  took a look at my barren and brown lawn, then crossed out the sale price and scribbled 'call me for a quote'.

That was last year, mind you, before a summer's worth of lawn work and seeding.

Tonight I was feeding the kids dinner when Smiley ran in and grunted, gesturing to the front door. There again was a contractor, this one looking to give me a quote on the windows.

As it turns out the windows are one of the three things we are hoping to have done this year, so I asked him to return at a better time - Lis, that means Friday at 7 pm - but geesh.

I suppose just by agreeing to the estimate I validated his approach, but doesn't anyone ever just reach out and slap them?

Even as I was signing up I was nursing a grudge.

"Did you stop at every house on the block, or just the ones that looked like sh**?" I asked.

He hesitated, gauged my temper, deemed me genial, and laughed. "Not every house, but a lot of them. See you Friday."

An American Haunting - review

I like horror movies, which is odd considering I hated them growing up. That had much to do with my coming of age in the Golden Age of Slasher films. Along with the new 'torture porn' phenomenom, slasher films remain on the bottom of my things to watch list.

But I'm all for genuinely scary films, and I'll take a cheesy mid-budget '70's horror flick anyday (think Amityville/Omen/Black Christmas).

I had high hopes An American Haunting would fit one of the bills, despite the boring title.

Yeah, no.

Not a bad movie, don't get me wrong. The acting was good - Sissie Spacek, Donald Sutherland - and there was a wicked crash scene a good way into the film.

It's based on the 'real life' case of the Bell Witch, but much of this film is pure fiction.

The movie dilly-dallies quite a bit, showing us the day to day afflictions without ramping up the fear or our sympathies. The modern day story bookending the tale is superfluous, and, frankly, a lot of folks do a lot of things the exact opposite of how it would go in real life.

Evil creature knocking at your door, then suddenly stopping? Why by all means, take that as a cue to head for the doorknob. Go on, open the door - I'm sure the evil spirit is gone!

Devil child appearing then dissapearing in front of you? Gosh golly, follow that child through the woods alone, and yeaaaah, of course you should enter that dark cave after her! What's the worst that could happen?

All kidding aside, without giving away the ending (one Lisa guessed five minutes in) let me just say the filmakers looked at the situation, thought of it soley in 21st century terms, conjured up a vile, appalling rationale, and used it awkwardly explain away a 19th century ghost.

If they're right, then pi** on the dead. If they're wrong, I'd hate to have to be the screenwriter when he gets to the hereafter and meets the person he slandered from 200 years distance.

Not a bad way to waste an evening, but I wouldn't jump through hoops to get my hands on a copy.

2.5 stars out of 5.

The bush out front

I'm sorry I haven't been able to catch up on my blog reading list; I promise I'll devote some serious time to it in the next day or so.

* * * *

Crazy weekend, and it went by super fast. We retired early Friday night and from Saturday afternoon until only a few hours ago Lisa and YaYa were out of the house, enjoying a slumber/birthday party for a family friend. Plus LuLu and the baby were at my Mom's and Smiley was at my in-law's, leaving the house to me and me alone.

Party!

Alas, my friends are old and decrepit and could not/would not sally forth to do anything. In retrospect the highlight of the evening was taking one of Lisa's friends across town to pay her cell phone bill.

Whoo-hoo.

But, I did get some projects done around the house, and early Sunday morn Socialist and I went and picked up a dresser Lisa's Aunt donated to LuLu. With that out of the way I borrowed a saw from him and started the next thing on the Honey-do list: the bushes out front.

Now here's the deal. When we bought the house, it had been abandoned for years and the bush in front of the porch was completely overgrown. On New Years Day of 2007 (or maybe Dec 31st, '06) I borrowed some manual hedge clippers and went to town.

These are pics of the bush midway through the effort. When I started it extended halfway into the sidewalk, forcing you to step around it when walking past.

If my memory is right, when it was done I was too tired to bother taking pictures of the end result. Here's the closest I could find to an 'after' shot.

On with the show. The bushes remained universally despised by eveyone but me. "I'd have cut them down the minute I signed the [mortgage] papers," my Dad said.

"They're awful," Lisa would say.

"I like them. I think they look like bonsai trees," I'd say.

"Yeah. If bonsai trees were five feet tall and looked like sh*t"

In time she modified her attack to point out they blocked our view of the kids when they would ride their bikes in front. It did, and that bothered me.She proposed a landscaping plan that was acceptable, and I gave in.

So fine, today I decided to take them down.

Only . .

Only I have this quirk where my conscience aches at killing a plant or tree. Yeah, yeah - I'm not a tree hugger. But put it this way: I'm all for capital punishment, but I'm not volunteering to pull the switch, you know?

So I cut down a bunch of the bush and paused, wracked with guilt. And a jogger goes by and says "Smells nice anyway." and I took a wiff and thought "huh, he's right."

It was very fragrant, almost like the cedar chests that both sets of my grandparent's used. And that got me started on how old the bush must be to be that large, that gnarled, and how it might predate my family's purchase of the house (~1940) and if left alone just might outlive us all.

And I started to think about how maybe my Mom played under it as a kid, or my Grandma stood in its shadow as my Grandpa started to woo her. And maybe it was Great-Grandpa himself that planted it, perhaps to commemorate a big event - like puchasing this house - or as an anniversary gift to my Great-Grandma. Maybe the day it was planted was a big deal.

Or maybe it was just an ugly bush that came with the house and eveyone ignored it for decades.

Either way I stopped, took a step back, and came up with a plan.

An hour or so later Lisa returned and saw me moving branches to the trash. With excitement in her voice she asked if the bush was gone. "Sort of," I said, and took her out front.

"See, it opens up the whole front of the porch. You can see the sidewalk from the rocking chairs, I checked. And it'll bookend that shepard's crook you wanted. And I defy you to tell me they don't look like bonsai now"

She paused. "Dude." That's all she said . . but it said so much.

Sadly, subsequent opinions, voiced by others, also lean towards chopping the thing down.

Dangit, I really do like it. And once I lay some sod, put that shepards crook up, and maybe a small birdfeeder or a stone with our family name on it, I think it'll rock.

Or I can just borrow the saw again.

Tags: blogplugs

Congrats Danica!

Because  it was run in Japan, had a start delayed by weather until 9 pm central time, and was broadcast on a station with as many viewers as your grandpa's webcam, you might not have heard the groundbreaking news.

Last night Danica Patrick became the first woman in history to win an IRL (Indy Car) race, taking the trophy at the Japan Indy 300.

Despite all the hoopla surrounding her entry into racing Danica had never, until yesterday, won a race. That fueled comments in the heavily sexist racing world that she was a publicity stunt, or racing's version of  Anna Kournikova.

The series of scantily-clad bikini shots in Sports Illustrated probably didn't help alleviate those concerns.

[I was going to post some of the pics here but they're probably too racy, no pun intended, for this site. Not that the research was a waste of time.]

So now she's a bona fide winner, fair and square, and the 800 pound gorilla in the room just walked out the door. It's a monumental moment in sports, and I suppose in the modern history of women as well.

Congrats Danica!

* * * *

NOTE: Mind you, it's nothing compared to YaYa being the first ever female MLB player,  finishing her career with a .279 avg. 87 home runs, 512 RBI's and 1571 hits as a 2nd baseman. Nor LuLu's turn as the first female pitcher in MLB history, finishing with a 75-59 record, with 52 holds and a 4.12 ERA for her career, which also features 24 home runs at the plate.

The baby's numbers have yet to come into focus.

Smiley, it goes without saying, will hit .304 with 868 home runs and 2548 RBI's in a first ballot Hall of Fame career.

Give or take a dozen RBI"s, natch. I'm not a psychic you know.

Tags: Danica Patrick,

Hey, lend me a hand will ya?

Just for the record, Raspberry Beret is my favorite Prince song, although Get Off comes in a close second.

With that important fact out of the way, on to the business at hand.

I might have mentioned this before, but a close friend of mine has a friend who's wife is a professional blogger in these parts. Friend of a friend's wife . . yeah, that's right.

Anyway, to my friend's credit this seemed to annoy him, what with me still blogging here for free while she earned a living doing the same thing. Having some connections at that company himself, he promised to put a word in for me.

But he wanted some information to prime the conversation, such as how many visitors I average, etc.

Well, that average is 41 a day, although my mini-vacation is skewing the numbers downward. 1230 visitors a month isn't too bad for a site that now depends soley on word of mouth for advertising (instead of sites like Blog Explosion).

But I'd like some additional info to give him. Keep in mind that at this point my chances of being paid to write are roughly equal to that of being paid to dance covered in baby oil, but what the hell. You never really know; there's always some freak out there who'll  pay for the goods.

So with that in mind, be you a regular who leaves comments or a longtime lurker, please complete these quick survey questions.

If yes . . .

If yes  . . .

Some background info . . .

If outside the U.S . .

Thanks for the help!

Of Rockies, Inherited skill, and what little I learned yesterday

I don't have much to say about the events of yesterday yet, other than on the surface it seemed positive. Assurances were made, the right words floated into my ears . . and I'm not sure I bought any of it.

We'll see.

Add to that a rigorous 5 hour city inspection that morning that ended about 20 seconds before the meeting began, and you have one heck of a workday.

On the other hand the inspection allowed me no time to prepare for - or worry about - the meeting, so it did have a positive spin.

* * * * *

If we ever get that print/save option for the journals I'm going to pay someone to index this site. AOL Journal's little search box is for sh*t.

Here at Slapinions I wrote about Joe Hill's debut novel Heart Shaped Box. Good luck locating the post.

All that aside, it turns out that Joe Hill is the pseudonym for none other than the son of Stephen and Tabitha King.

Yes, that Stephen King.

I was suitably impressed by the book and the writing and I'm . . wow, it sounds so lame . .but I'm tickled that the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

I look forward to his next novel.

* * * *

God Bless MLB Extra Innings.

Last night I watched the Rockies and Padres take a 0-0 score into the 14th inning. I'm not going to say it was an incredible game, because no sport should go 3 hours without a goal/run/touchdown being scored. It just isn't right.

I gave up on the game in the 15th and went to bed. That was around 1 am my time.

In the morning I discovered the game went 22 innings. There was a seventh innings stretch, and a 14th inning stretch, and a 21st inning stretch.

I'd have walked out of the park long before that came to pass.

Anywho, the Rox won 2-1 on an unearned run in the end.

But it was a play in the 13th that grabbed my attention. Paul McAnulty of the Padres led off the bottom of the inning with a double to right. Conventional baseball wisdom says that when one run wins the game, you don't push your luck. You're already in scoring position sitting on second, and you sure as heck don't make the 1st or 3rd out trying for an extra base.

So what does he do? He turns the corner and chugs for third. Now I'm no big Rockies fan, but I chose sides in this contest and that side was Colorado. Even so, when I saw him head for third my first thought, word for word was "What the hell is he doing? Dumb a**"

And here comes a rocket throw from the rightfielder to his cutoff man, who rifles it to third with plenty of time to spare.

Out.

The next batter bloops a single that *would* have won the game but now accomplished nothing, and the Padres go on to lose hours later.

Fundamentals people. Live and die by them in baseball. Fundamentals.

Sunshine

Judging by Amazon, I don't think you'll find many bad reviews of Sunshine, a sci-fi film released in 2007. That is, except for this one.

50 years from now the sun is dying and a ship is dispatched to re ignite the star with a nuclear blast. Something causes that ship to fail while out of communication range with Earth, and a second, 'last best hope' crew is sent. Enter our movie, as it follows the astronauts of the Icarus II on their mission.

This is not Armageddon; for all I know all the science is bunk but they make a valiant and largely successful attempt to make it as 'realstic' as possible, so much so that I think this the movie is largely accessible only to a true sci-fi fan.

My problem with the movie is that it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. It's part 2001, part Alien, part Deep Impact, and in the third act it veers rather drastically away from even that splintered identity to become of all things, a horror movie.

Forget the thumb-up-their-bum Amazon reviewers who go on and on about how this blends visual style with blah and blah and offers a spiritutal ya da yada.

Personally, I regret putting down my guitar to pop in the DVD.

2.5 stars out of 5 on my scale.

Changes

I've never talked about work on this blog, right down to clamming up about what line of work I'm in, and that's not going to change tonight.

I will however mention that big changes are in the works. 

Basically,  in the next few weeks I could be out of a job. Most of the staff believes they are in the same position but I think the top of the totem pole is what's most at risk of getting cut down. I suppose there are other scenarios, right up to the idealistic 'things are going to get better'  but those aren't the thoughts you bank on.

I can't talk freely until all is said and done, or at least don't feel 'right' doing so, but there are pros/cons to all the alternatives.

By Thursday night I *might* have an idea of what the future holds, or at least have put the picture slightly more in focus.

In the meantime I've tried to finagle our bills to give us a worst-case buffer against the night. We're also in the process of refinancing the house, obstenively to re-do the roof. But an increasingly important incentive  is the lower payment the (vastly) reduced interest rate will give us. That might come in handy real soon.

We'll see. Wish me luck, whatever fates definition of 'luck' might turn out to be.