If anyone needs a ride from Seattle to Spokane or Coeur D'Alene on Sunday August 13th, I'm your man.

I've always loved watching infomercials, the ones that sell you the knives that can cut through a cement block, a rotisserie that you "set it and forget it", a real estate business plan that will make you $100K in a month, or maybe a vacuum that can lift up a bowling ball.

But the other night, I think I saw the strangest infomercial I've ever seen. It asks for a donation to, get this, send Russian Jews to Israel. $350 sends one, $700 sends a couple, and $1400 sends a family of four (note that it's missing the key infomercial bulk discount). It's by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews for their On Wings of Eagles program. It also has the endorsement of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. So, go on, help a Russian Jew immigrate to Israel.

Apparently, Sun recently launched an ad campaign on buses headed to Redmond touting OpenOffice. Looks awful desperate to me.

I've never liked attack ads. I think that a product should hold up on its own merit. Advertisers shouldn't need to debase the competition just so their products look good. And they should especially not lie about the shortcomings of the competition.

For example, look at the new Apple ads. Because obviously, I can't manage photos, or edit videos, or connect to USB devices on a PC. Neither can they work out of the box (has anyone seen a mac mini, it doesn't even come with a monitor, keyboard, or mice). They're working off cliches that people are used to (10 years ago), but they don't honestly compare their product to modern PCs. It makes me want to give my money to MS out of spite. (Oh, and for the record, in the second link, that is a correct use of touche - point: I'm a PC, counterpoint: I'm a mac and a PC, touche).

What makes these ads even less effective is that they have to make mention of the competition, essentially giving them free advertising (because no publicity is bad publicity).

Consumers need to stand up to this kind of advertising, and be more critical of their buying choices.

There's a new problem.

RFID blocking wallets.

I just got the following email from la@vosswater.com (forwarded to me and two other people with plausible Norwegian names). There were also attachments which I opened (I know, I'm a prime target now for virus senders), but they seem like reports that interns should write, including how people responded to taste tests. Unfortunately, the body of the email is in Norwegian (I'm guessing), and neither babelfish or translate.google have a Norwegian to English option, so I'm hoping there's some Norwegian speakers who can shed some light.

---- Opprinnelig melding ----
Fra: annette@vosswater.com
Til: la@vosswater.com, miami@vosswater.com, nyc@vosswater.com
Emne: ukentlige rapporter skal leveres paa denne maaten :)
Dato: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:43:18 +0200

Hei alle sammen,

Her kommer baade det jeg sendte dere, rett foer vi hadde conference
calls i formiddag -som var det jeg forklarte dere paa telefonen.
Jeg sender dere ogsaa excel sheets, 2 pages, -som er det skjemaet
alle skal levere sine rapporter i.
Jeg kommer snart tilbake til dere med en litt bedre gjennomgang av
den ratingen vi vil at ale skal bruke, hva som menes med skalaen fra
1-4.

Ring eller email hvis dere har spm osv.

Annette

A manual way to systematically solve sudoku puzzles.

Although I'm not sure about its assertions at the end. This method assumes that all sudoku puzzles have 1 unique solution, is that necessarily true?

It costs $500+ to replace the horn.