P
Proctologically
Guest
Been hanging out in Barnes and Noble. I go there to see iffin I can still get picked up.
Unfortunately, it's the same old swan song, guys seem to be more interested than the girls. <sigh>
Still, it's reassuring.
I thought it woulda been *more* of a watering hole for the the Westchester Semi-literati,
but mostly it's for old people, and high-schoolers from dysfunctional upper-crust families
looking for a place to do their homework. Thanks god there's a Starbucks concession up at
the front, with quite an array of dark-green homework tables. Mercifully, very few of the
likes of Garrison or other MFWeighters frequent B&N, for obvious reasons of literacy; the
few that do are usually huddled in the magazine section with muscle/girlie/*** rags.
Disproportionately noisey, of course, but their grunting and snorting blends in pretty
well with the Espresso machine.
Oh, I also go there to read bout web design and marketing, on my little cold-weather
hiatus from the machine shop--yeah, the HoloBarre lives, altho it is somewhat comatose.
There are some very brite people out there in web design and marketing. One of them is
Ron H Williams, who wrote a series of books The Wizard of Ads, which is a collection of
essays and letters on marketing, advertising, etc. He writes, in Essay #20 (The Cocaine
of Advertising): Ask your physician how to feel good, and he'll look you squarely in the
eye and say, "Eat right and exercise." Yet for every dollar spent in fitness centers,
Americans spend nineteen dollars on cocaine. The reason? Two seconds after you snort
cocaine you feel like Superman. Two weeks of diet and exercise just makes you hungry and
sore. end quote. I thought the 19:1 ratio (if true--no sources) is spectacular, and oh-so
telling. Perhaps cocaine is why Americans are not fatter than they already are.
Appearances in health clubs notwithstanding, it is truly amazing how few Americans
actually exercise. Most of the parks here in Westchester are empty, save for a very few
people walking their dogs, or pushing strollers. Most of the people who drive to these
parks sit in their cars. Central Park, and its reservoir, is home to the NYC yuppie and
the NYC Road Runner's club (and Gary Null disciples). Of the couple hundred per day that
use that area, do the math: 200/2,000,000 = .0001 or .01% of the Manhattan population. My
sense is that half the success of urban/suburban health clubs is
1) their pick-up value, 2) the availability of drugs in the locker rooms, and 2) some strange
satisfaction from exhibitionism. Just my sense. Anyway, for those who are interested, The Cocaine
of Advertising is the chant: SALE! SALE! SALE! SALE! because altho initially effective, that
marketing route requires steeper and steeper discounts to generate the same effect. It is more of
a trap, perhaps, than an addiction. Bard Press publishes these books, and you have to see the
jacket design to believe it. In fact, the whole medievil/papyrus effect is truly amazing.
Relatively cheap--$17 each. Have to admit, altho the essays are mostly very very good, I
generally rely on good note-taking (much cheaper!), but the covers made me buy them!
----------------------------
Mr. P.V.'d formerly Droll Troll
Unfortunately, it's the same old swan song, guys seem to be more interested than the girls. <sigh>
Still, it's reassuring.
I thought it woulda been *more* of a watering hole for the the Westchester Semi-literati,
but mostly it's for old people, and high-schoolers from dysfunctional upper-crust families
looking for a place to do their homework. Thanks god there's a Starbucks concession up at
the front, with quite an array of dark-green homework tables. Mercifully, very few of the
likes of Garrison or other MFWeighters frequent B&N, for obvious reasons of literacy; the
few that do are usually huddled in the magazine section with muscle/girlie/*** rags.
Disproportionately noisey, of course, but their grunting and snorting blends in pretty
well with the Espresso machine.
Oh, I also go there to read bout web design and marketing, on my little cold-weather
hiatus from the machine shop--yeah, the HoloBarre lives, altho it is somewhat comatose.
There are some very brite people out there in web design and marketing. One of them is
Ron H Williams, who wrote a series of books The Wizard of Ads, which is a collection of
essays and letters on marketing, advertising, etc. He writes, in Essay #20 (The Cocaine
of Advertising): Ask your physician how to feel good, and he'll look you squarely in the
eye and say, "Eat right and exercise." Yet for every dollar spent in fitness centers,
Americans spend nineteen dollars on cocaine. The reason? Two seconds after you snort
cocaine you feel like Superman. Two weeks of diet and exercise just makes you hungry and
sore. end quote. I thought the 19:1 ratio (if true--no sources) is spectacular, and oh-so
telling. Perhaps cocaine is why Americans are not fatter than they already are.
Appearances in health clubs notwithstanding, it is truly amazing how few Americans
actually exercise. Most of the parks here in Westchester are empty, save for a very few
people walking their dogs, or pushing strollers. Most of the people who drive to these
parks sit in their cars. Central Park, and its reservoir, is home to the NYC yuppie and
the NYC Road Runner's club (and Gary Null disciples). Of the couple hundred per day that
use that area, do the math: 200/2,000,000 = .0001 or .01% of the Manhattan population. My
sense is that half the success of urban/suburban health clubs is
1) their pick-up value, 2) the availability of drugs in the locker rooms, and 2) some strange
satisfaction from exhibitionism. Just my sense. Anyway, for those who are interested, The Cocaine
of Advertising is the chant: SALE! SALE! SALE! SALE! because altho initially effective, that
marketing route requires steeper and steeper discounts to generate the same effect. It is more of
a trap, perhaps, than an addiction. Bard Press publishes these books, and you have to see the
jacket design to believe it. In fact, the whole medievil/papyrus effect is truly amazing.
Relatively cheap--$17 each. Have to admit, altho the essays are mostly very very good, I
generally rely on good note-taking (much cheaper!), but the covers made me buy them!
----------------------------
Mr. P.V.'d formerly Droll Troll