Can't Ask Jeeves

The Informatin Technology news reports today that the genteel butler that has been Ask Jeeves Inc.'s face for nearly a decade is getting shown the service entrance.

That's right, Jeeves is being fired.

Company research indicated that consumers still associated the butler with the early versions of the Ask Jeeves search engine, which was designed to field inquiries in the form of direct questions -- a technology that delivered inconsistent results.

Here's my tribute to the event.



I'm kinda sad to see him go. Sure, he served up some wacky results accasionally, but it didn't prevent me from coming back again and again.

The new theme, "Ask A Crazy Child Star", is a whole different story. Apparently they have written code that will generate the off-balance responses of a certain unbalanced former-Partridge.



I don't need more any yelling in my life.

Hump

The Black-Eyed Peas are not one of my favorite bands, but it's hard not to get into their slick rhythms and thumping beats. Fergie (vocalist) is blasted as being mere eye-candy and not much of a singer, but I think she's decent at both tasks. Well, ok, maybe not the greatest singer. Case in point, "Humps" from the "Monkey Business" album.

If you've heard the tune, you'll have to agree it's hella good, but the lyrics are almost distractingly horrible. I'm not sure who sat down and pounded out that piece of thought-provoking prose, but as far as lyrics go they are just way too cerebral for the average person. For example, "My hump (repeat nine times)/my lovely lady lumps." Deep, man. Deep. They used to call Rush the most intellectual rock band, but I think they need to hand that title over to the Peas.

So OK, music should be about fun and the words don't HAVE to mean anything. I'm with you there. You forget I'm into Good Charlotte and Kelly Clarkson, neither of them is known for "The Might Be Giants" - quality lyrics.

I will continue to bob my head in my office (a.k.a cube # 274) to the sleazy beats of Fergies ode to her "lady lumps".

"...get you drunk, get you love drunk on my hump..."

Eat Me

It's a few weeks old, but this is still a funny story...


Pizza firing wins online contest

Tuesday, September 6, 2005; Posted: 2:09 a.m. EDT (06:09 GMT)

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- A computer engineer who lost his job because he ate two pieces of pepperoni pizza has been named the winner of an offbeat Internet contest that solicited stories about outrageous firings.

A panel of Silicon Valley judges picked Jim Garrison's strange tale from more than 1,000 entries submitted during the past month. The reward: a free Caribbean cruise.

Garrison, 39, prevailed over some tough competition.

The runners-up included a furniture mover who got fired after he and a co-worker were caught fencing with some adult sex toys found in a customer's bedroom; a worker who misunderstood a manager's instructions to send some sensitive data to microfilm and e-mailed it to a "Michael Finn" instead; and a warehouse worker found doing perverse things with the prosthetics made by his employer.

Garrison, who lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, said he never thought he would be rewarded for getting fired. Then again, he never dreamed he would be fired after he ate two of the six pieces of pepperoni pizza left over from a company meeting.

What he didn't know is that several other employees had already worked out a plan to take the leftover pizza home with them.

When they discovered one-third of the leftover pizza pie had been eaten, the employees reported Garrison to management, ultimately leading to his firing last November -- a month after he ate the food.

Rain Man

Today was almost a mirror to a day way back in May. While running some errands I stopped by a park and just sat listening to the rain drumming on the roof. It sounded a bit like the drum solo in "Tom Sawyer". The rain distorted the view out the windows and made the car a comfortable place to be.

In May I was worried about a bunch of stuff that just doesn't matter much now. Funny how a few months can change things.

Bring On The Pain

My brother Tim and I visited an old friend last weekend. Well, not so much an old friend, but a sadistic sports trainer we know. I take that back, he's not sadistic, just owns a business that centers on the dishing out of generous portions of pain. Dan owns the "Athletes Edge", and 2 years ago our wives gave us a great Christmas present, putting us at his mercy for hockey training.

The first time we went was prior to our annual August hockey tournament. He led us through a wam up, then turned us loose on the "patented hockey treadmill of death". It looks like this:






Weird looking, eh? Basically it's a flat hamsterwheel, with a mat of slats that roll under you at breakneck speed. The idea is you strap on your skates and just forget that you're on a Plexiglas treadmill and move your legs as if you're skating on ice. You are facing a mirror so you can see
how you're skating, and the trainer, Dan, is telling you what you're doing wrong. In our session, he noticed we were doing lots of things wrong.

Tim and I are OK skaters, our Dad started us early so we're comfortable on the ice. But when Dan breaks down your stride, you can see how inefficient or loose it is. Thirty seconds on the treadmill and your legs are burning like somebody squirted lighter fuel on them and then a match. The machine rolls at 8-10 mph on an incline, which is almost a fast stride but not
quite a sprint. For the most part it does feel like you're skating on ice, once you get used to the strange sensation and the fear that you'll be sucked down into the thing.

Another oddity you have to account for is that you're skating uphill and therefore there's no gliding, which you usually do when skating. Then there is the harness rig, that is there to catch you should you totally lose it and fall. The only thing it was catching was my nutsack, which I'm pretty sure turns a nasty shade of blue.

It was 2 years before we got back to Athletes Edge for another session after the first gruelling visit. Whenever we go out to Boston, there just never seems to be time in the weekend to stop by there for a workout. It was also the lowest item on the priority list, right above visiting the Big Dig Project Museum. Last weekend Tim and I sucked it up and went for another workout. Dan greeted us by pointing to the stationary bikes and saying we had five minutes to get ready to skate. No handshake or "how ya been". We weren't sure if he was pissed because we've blown him off for 2 years or if the years running the business had hardened him a bit. He had been way more friendly last time out.

Once harnessed up at the machine, Dan refreshed us on how the treadmill setup worked and away we went. I had skated the night before in a preseason game, so my legs were already a bit sore. After 40 minutes of rotating on and off the treadmill my legs were rubbery and screaming of abuse. But I did learn some stuff and I know it will make me a better skater.

So there's that.

The world is full of crushing bores

Some people come by my cube and almost instantly I am bored. My head nods on it's own accord in parts of the discussion where it should nod to appear like I'm with them, but I'm already gone.

They think I'm deep in thought, and I am. I'm thinking about going for a walk at lunch to the park and maybe taking a nap under a big tree. Some people call it Attention Deficit Disorder, but I'd rather blame the speaker. After all, they're the person initiating this bore-fest.

Here's a few warning signs that YOU are a crushing bore:

1. People prepare contingency plans for getting out of conversations with you. For example: "If you see Dave come into my cube, give it 5 minutes then call me." or "I have to go talk to Betty. Page me if I'm not back in 10 minutes."

2. Everyone brings a laptop to any meeting that you call, so they can read mail and play Minesweeper as you prattle on and on. Some people bring broken laptops and just read a book behind it.

3. Team Meetings mysteriously take only 25 minutes when you're not in attendance and a hour and a half when you are there. Curious, ain't it?

Some of you think I'm making this stuff up. I effin wish I was.

Thanks to Morrissey for the great title

Again With The Shoelace

Ok, so the Shoelace entry needs a follow-up entry. Some people were confused why I would need to pick the lock of my bedroom when I could simply turn the knob and walk out? Astute observation! I neglected to point out that the pictures were FOR DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY. Sheesh.

This should be a better real-life example. As you can see, this is a door that if closed and locked, I couldn't be opened unless you have a key. Or, a shoelace....



Some doors now have a metal piece blocking you from seeing the bolt and thwarting the shoelace trick. This one, however, does not. And, as JV pointed out, you could also work the lock with the blade of a jack knife. Credit cards sometimes work as well. The shoelace is way more sweet, IMHO.

Everybody cool now? Good.

How to pick a lock with a shoelace

So the other day I mentioned that you can pick a lock with a shoelace. Yeah, an effin shoelace.

I discovered this while trying to break into the school library, which sounds badass, but it was just have something to read before school started. I would let myself in and be in there when the librarian showed up, reading in the back. She never went back there, just came in, turned on the lights in the front and went to her office to nap.

Pay attention, I'm only going over this once.

This method works on locks where you can see the bolt



and the bolt angle faces away from you.


Voila! A shoelace.


Thread it over the top of the bolt. It should slide down behind the bolt.


You may have to use something thin to get the shoelace back out beneath the bolt. Like a pen knife. I always carry one with my shoelace.



So then you have the shoelace around the bolt. Gently P U L L the door and both ends of the shoelace at the same time.


The shoelace slide the bolt and the door pops open.


You know you’re going to try this.

Effin Walkathon

I hated the effin high school walkathon. This was the forced march through the streets of Vancouver, from Granville and 41st down to Stanley Park and Back to raise money for the school. Where the money went, I have no idea, but the event stunk from beginning to end.

First, you had to get sponsored, which meant door-to-door begging for money for the walk. Each kid was expected to get at least a dollar total per kilometer. The walk was 20 km, so that was 20 bucks total. If you didn't get it, the Brothers beat you.

The actual walk itself was a foot-flappin good time. Starting after first bell, the high school (grades 8-12) emptied to the streets and we started the walk down Granville Street. Every few kilometers there were manned checkpoints where your walking card was stamped and you get some juice. At the halfway mark, near the totem poles in Stanley Park, you got a box lunch and brief rest before heading back to campus. If you were really lucky, it would rain, which happened almost every year.

The final pain was the collecting. You have to go back to those you begged to sponsor you and now collect for how many kilometers you actually walked. I figure I walked further getting and collecting the pledges than the actual walkathon itself.

The first two years I was a good soldier and played along, actually walking the route. By third year my friends and I figured out that Vancouver had an excellent transit system, and it was a shame to waste it. We weren't the first to come to this revelation, and the Brothers themselves were also enlightened to the temptation of the public transportation to skirt the system. The Brothers would send agents onto random busses and catch kids trying to ride during the walkathon. It was actually easy to get busted, because the busses along the actual route were limited, and you had to make frequent exits to get your stamp at the checkpoints. Missing a checkpoint
meant your entire walk was invalidated.

Being a semi-evil genius, I proposed an easy solution. We wouldn't ride the transit along the actual route, but a parallel route. The idea was to create a counterfeit stamp and validate our walkathon passbooks ourselves. They used the same stamp at every station, but every year chose a different color. I used a pink rubber eraser and carved the design with a pen knife,then tested it with black ink. Perfect. OK, well not perfect but close enough.

The plan was, on the day of the walk we would take a bus to Stanley Park, look at a passbook of a friend to determine the color ink, then stop at a drug store on the way back and get that color. We'd stamp our passbooks on the final bus back and write in the times in pen next to them, ready to hand it in when we got back. In between we'd kill time at a few of the primo arcades downtown. Perfect plan, but reality ain't so pretty.

Walkathon Day came at last and Jim, Mark and I snuck out the side door on Cartier Street after first bell and sprinted the other way down the street over to Oak street. We caught a bus to downtown and enjoyed a few hours playing video games and talking to the hookers on Richards Street until taking a bus to Stanley Park. We were riding on our bus transfers from the morning commute (we all rode the public bus to the school) so these were all free rides.

The surprise came when we looked at a friend's walkathon passport and saw that the stamp was NOT the same as the previous year, The carved stamp in my pocket was useless. GULP.

With visions of beatings at the hands of the Brothers for cheating on the Walkathon in our heads, we devised a plan. Mark borrowed a football from some kid and began passing it with Jim. After a few minutes, Mark made a dramatic diving catch and crashed into the table where they were stamping passbooks. In the confusion that followed I stepped in a grabbed a stamp AND a ink pad that I had seen fly off the table. I ran to a picnic table behind the malay and hastily stamped our passbooks while the adults helped Mark up and they re-assembled the checkpoint table. Mark and Jim apologizing profusely, and tried to slow their progress. In 30 seconds I returned to the scene to help "find" the missing book and stamp on the grass.

Jubilant, we took a bus out to UBC to what was then the best arcade in the area to celebrate, then a final transfer onto the 41st Street bus back to school. We slipped in the side door and handed in our passbooks as the other walkers were wearily trudging in. Done.

In the next two years the Walkathon became easier as we gained access to a car (Mark's) and discovered that the passport stamps were stored in a box in the library, to which I had found a way to break in using a shoelace. I kid you not, an effin shoelace. I'll explain that one later on. By senior year we didn't even bother going to Stanley Park. We went to a movie and ate pizza downtown.

If only I had used my powers for good....

Inappropriate Attire

The place that I work has a pretty liberal dress code, but there are boundaries. They send out a descriptive memo every 6 months or so reminding people that certain type of dress are just not "professional". The section labeled "Inappropriate Attire" always cracks me up.

INAPPROPRIATE ATTIRE INCLUDES:
· Hawaiian shirts, rugby shirts, or souvenir shirts with annoying slogans
· Shirts with messages like "Red Sox Suck"
· Tank tops or halter-tops that show off generous cleavage
· Short skirts or bare midriffs (for people over 25)
· Baggy, low-hanging and loose-fitting pants - ass cracks are not to be
displayed during business hours
· Fatigues, except during hunting season, and only if clean (no
bloodstains)
· Sweatshirts or sweatpants of any kind
· Jogging suits, wind suits, Hazmat suits, or Gumbah suits

So I had a theory that I could loose weight easier if I wore tight clothing. I'm looking to drop 10 or 15 prior to the hockey season starting and the usual way I shed pounds by reduceing food intake is too much willpower. When I'm wearing my "snug" pants, however, I think twice before
grabbing a Ho-Ho or having the extra large bowl of Italian Wedding soup.

But the man came down on me and my perfect little dieting plan. I was wearing my snug pants yesterday and the boss stopped by, frowning disapprovingly.
"Shamus, you can't wear those pants to work. Spandex is inappropriate attire."
"These pants aren't spandex, they're polyester!"
"Whatever. Those pants are so tight your legs look like sausages bulging out of their casings. And they make you walk funny."
"My doctor says I need these pants to help my circulation. Do you want me to pass out at work?"
"Whatever. And try shaving using a mirror next time. You're scaring the women."

The man may be able to control what I wear on the outside, but they'll never stop me from sporting my X-Files underwear.

Since Brian asked....

Brian asked for a sample of the masterpieces I painted in college. I still have one piece as a reminder to me to take it up again and create something better.



Yeah, it blows. I know. Someday I'll do better.

The Impression That I Get

I have a new picture on my desk at work, a print of Monet's "The Bridge to Argenteuil" which was painted in the late 1880's sometime. I find that pastoral images are handy to have around when dealing with the pleasures of the daily grind. I'm being sarcastic about the "pleasures" part, in case you didn't catch that.

Having tried my hand at painting, I've found it's a damn difficult skill to capture light and color to make objects look real. I've always been drawn to impressionism because the works tend to deal with everyday subjects, and often exceed what can be captured by a photograph of the same scene.

My personal theory on this is we have a switch in our heads that gets flipped when we see something like an impressionistic painting, and a whole set of neurons get fired up as your brain "fills in" the gaps between the painted impression and what a real scene would look like. You don't get that with a photo, because it's all there for you. Something about the "extra work" makes your brain happy. Or at least, my brain.

The reflection of the scene on the water is pretty excellent as well. I never figured out how to paint that and make it look like the real thing. Or at least enough like the real thing. I had a teacher in college who was always saying "painting comes from the soul" and that you really couldn't teach someone to paint, only to refine their inbred spirit to express themselves. That was bad news for me, since I was kinda hoping for the teaching part.

My portfolio that year ended up containing a few childish pictures of sailboats and a replica of the Police album cover from "Ghost In The Machine". I got a "B" in the class, which stood for Better find something else to do for a profession.

A Really Bad Idea From Honda

Honda has had some great innovations through the years. Now they have came up with an air bag for motorcycles. It sounds like a good idea, after all air bags are good, right? Well not for a motorcycle and I'll tell you why.



1) The air bag is only going to help in a front collision. Side and rear impacts are the majority accidents and guess what? This thing is no help for getting sideswiped by Grandpa who didn't see the bright red light telling him it was his turn to stop at the intersection.

2) If you do have a front impact, where do you think you're gonna go? You'll bounce off the bag like a trampolene and fly up in the air and out into traffic where a semi truck loaded with frozen goods will roll over you. Nice.

3) Accidental inflation - what kind of chance do you think you have if this thing goes off while you're flying down the road? Can you say ZERO? And oh, by the way, your bike is toast too since it rolled off that cliff after you got knocked off by the air bag.

Good try guys, but what you need to invent is the bubble suit. That's right, a suit that is a giant ball of protection. At the first sign of trouble, the bubble inflates, sealing the rider in a cocoon of safe air. No matter which direction trouble comes from, Fonzi will bounce safely away, like a leather-wearing bubble-boy.

By the way, that idea is now copywrited. Copyritted. Copywrote.

I'll be mellow when I'm dead

I needed some happy music this morning, so I dipped into some Weird Al. I found myself singing along with this one, a classic from the 80's.

It was true in then and damn it, it's true today.


I'll be mellow when I'm dead
by Weird Al Yankovic

I don't care about your karma
I don't care about what's hip
No space cadet's gonna tell me what to do
I won't swim in your Jacuzzi
You can't make me settle down
I'd rather kick and jump and bite and scratch
And scream until I'm blue
I may as well be hyper as long as I'm still around
'Cause I'll have lots of time to be laid back
When I'm six feet underground.

I can't stand the smell of incense
I don't really like to jog
No Joanie Mitchell 8-tracks in the car (oooh)
I hate anything organic
Even health food makes me sick
You won't catch me sipping Perrier
Down in some sushi bar, I tell you
Now's the time to go for all the gusto you can grab
You'll have plenty of time to be low-key
When you're laid out on the slab

I don't want no part of that vegetarian scene
I won't buy me a pair of designer jeans
No redwood hot tub to my name
I got all that I want and if it's all the same to you
I don't need a course in selfawareness
To find out who I am
And I'd rather have a Big Mac or a Jumbo Jack
Than all the bean sprouts in Japan

Ah so don't ask me what I'm into
I don't need to prove I'm cool
I'll break your arm if you ask me what's my sign
I won't tell you where my head's at
I don't need to see no shrink
Psychosis may be in this year but I'm really not that kind
And I'm in no hurry to be casual
In fact I think I'll wait
Until I'm pushing up the daisies
Like wow, man, can you relate?

Get On The Bus

That's it, now git.

And don't come back until you're learned.

Inscape

I hated school ever since 6th grade. Up until then, I was a happy, enthusiastic kid. But that year I transferred schools 3 times in 2 countries. From NY to Ladner, BC Canada, then to Cloverdale BC. I still don't know what it was about that double move that did it exactly, but you can see it in my face in the class pictures I morphed from a happy to morose.

My St. Paul's School picture is the image of the happy kid in a blue tie. Next you see the Ladner picture where I have a worried look, not really fitting in among the happy smiles of my new classmates. I think that picture was taken the 3rd day I was there or something like that. Kids were making fun of my accent, and I didn't handle that well at first. I later made several friends in that class despite being there only for 2 months. In my last week there a steel hockey net hit me in the top of the head. That probably didn't do much for my spirits, or my grades, and probably explains that twitch in my ear.

The dark transformation was complete by the time I sat for the Cloverdale picture, where I have a deadpan look on my mug and I'm covertly giving the camera the finger. I'm sitting cross-legged in the front row, hands clasped on my knees, and you can see my middle finger protruding sideways. I mean, what the hell is up with THAT? Silent defiance? A cry for therapy? Who the eff knows.

High school was a stress-filled orgy of spastic events from the first day.The Christian Brothers were very christ-like in their physical and verbal beatings, like the nuns had been, but with a more menacing effect. They're adage was a Latin phrase that translated to "knowledge makes a bloody entrance". Well, it certainly toughened me up, and I learned many important skills in my time there from lock picking, explosive device assembly, crank phone calls and how to cheat on provincial exams (I'll save that one for another day).

I was hoping college would open the gates to stimulating discourse and adventurous learning, but I freshman year I was feeling the same listless and unenthusiastic drive toward learning that I had grown accustomed to. Two things were different though. One, I joined the cross country team, which gave me something social and fun to look forward to and two, I joined the school newspaper. They got me through the year, and I liked it well enough to come back the following fall, give it one more year in the Northeast. I wasn't expecting much.

The next year there was a new editor at the paper, Richard Olshak. Rick shook things up on the "Inscape" staff. He injected a newshound venom into the paper, and brought in a whole crop of new writers. He was the kind of guy who could get people fired up by delivering a message that was clear and concise. He delved into topics that were out of bounds to previous editors, taking on the administration and the Student Association over controversial issues as they came up. This was ballsy because we were funded by the SA, so taking them to task always resulted in heat.

For example, he organized a rally on the proposed tuition increase. He threw together a professional rally unlike any that had ever been held at our small school. He had the administration quacking in their ivy-covered offices as the crowd burned the tuition increase notices as a symbol of our displeasure while a bevy of speakers addressed a breakdown of the annual school budget showing areas where money could be garnered and waste that could be recovered.

But it wasn't just about serious journalism, he brought fun to the paper as well. He found talented art students to do lampooning cartoons, and started an April fools edition of the paper that was a spoof on ourselves. Instead of being a joke, Inscape became a sought-after publication, with people actually hanging around the Activities center looking for the printer delivery guy to drop them off.

Rick graduated my sophomore year, and the next year the news editor Willis Smith took the reins. He had the same writing skills and go-gettem attitude Rick had brought to the place, and the paper flourished. We had the chance to shine a light on the seedy underbelly of the administration as they rigged SA elections, spent money on inappropriate expenditures and generally bungled from week to week. We always had stuff to write about, because staff insiders came to us with excellent leads and tips for stories.

It may sound strange, but having this outlet and all that went with it led to me actually doing better in my studies. I'm not sure if it was the activity, or the comradery, or the friendships that came out of that time, but it sparked the juices and had me enjoying school for once.

It ended predictably. The Student Association had enough of having a microscope exposing it's dirty laundry and unable to stem the leaks from within, they invented a lame reason to fire Willis as editor after the last issue that year, and tried to get one of us section editors to take over. We all declined, except for one who was responsible for the entertainment section. She alone was willing to turn her back on what had been built up, in her quest to gain the editor byline for herself. The rest of us up and quit.

The paper looked a lot different after that. Thankfully, they changed the name as well, so the PR fluff rag that was published the next year was not mistaken to be the Inscape. To his credit, Willis helped that piece of garbage that took over the lead on the paper, so she could at least get the happy happy joy joy good PR-fest rag to the printer. Makes me ill to think about it.

When the alumni groups from my high school or college call me, they get an earful. How would you react if your plumber called you and said, "We're calling all of our past customers, asking for donations to help the customers we're going to be servicing in the future...."

What the eff? I paid for a service (education), and I got it (for the most part). In fact, I got even more that what I paid for, because they threw me a few beatings for free. How many plumbers offer THAT kind of service? Well, the ones NOT wearing leather, I mean.

Balls

All I can say is, the weekend was over too fast.

I’ll skip all the descriptions of the annual college friends get-together, which was great as usual, and go right to the funniest thing I can recall from the weekend.

Sunday the guys were in charge as the ladies went to exploit the temporary lifting of the state sales tax. After dinner we brought the kids up to a local resort and turned the kids loose on one of the several play sets they had there. Some older kids were there, and one kid in particular. He was 15, decked out in a phat outfit of North Carolina blue hoop shorts and a fly baseball cap turned just so to the side. He was jumping on an off-kilter metal swing of some kind, trying to get giggles out of a young girl watching her younger brother on the climbing wall.

He must have needed a big finish or something, so he tried to do a fancy dismount to gain her favors. His leg got caught on the pole as he lept up and ended up landing sideways on the pole coming down.

The cry was inhuman. It was surprised, and anguished. TC, Jon and I turned and saw the young hipster bent over double, stumbling toward the benches we were sitting on. He was in a world of pain. I know, because he was oblivious to his surrounds. He didn’t care who was watching him, and his hand went into the shorts and massaged his inflamed privates.

We weren’t laughing with him, but at him. He rocked on the bench, trying to get his breath back. I turned to Jon and TC and said, “That’s gotta hurt your rep, taking a hit to the nutsack like just when you think you’ve impressed a chick. “

The guy then hobbled back over to the girl who was leaving with her little brother in tow. He trotted after them like the hunchback running for a free chiropractic session.

We made jokes about it as he chased her out in the darkness, but we were thinking we’d all been there, in one way or another.

Jon suggests it was like this.

Vanilla Vodka

We're in the midst of a college friends reunion weekend which we have every year at one of the households, this year it's at ours.

The big beverage hit this year (besides some delicious beer from the Syracuse region) is Vanilla Vodka. We did shots last night while playing cards and it was de-licious. Right from the freezer, it goes down smooth as sip of cold spring water, with a bit of a bite to let you know you just downed a shot. And then of course are the bed spins. Those are fun.

I think tonight we'll be doing some streaking, just to re-live the old days. It'll be like that scene out of Old School. Classic.

Hope your weekend is rockin.

Lasersharking is huge

I can see the puzzled look on your face, what the hell is "Lasersharking"? Let me explain it in layman's terms. Lasersharking is the conceptual action of piling multiple extraordinary accoutrements onto an object or situation, with the intent of making that situation more interesting.

Still lost? Well then try this - it derives from a scene in the movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, in which Dr. Evil demands that a death trap be filled not merely with sharks, but "sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads." Hence, lasersharking.

This term hits me every time I hear advertisements for a local car dealer (who now has dealerships nationwide), where he claims that the savings are "HUGE" (he yells the word huge and elongates it out to 30 syllables - Heeeeeeeeeeeyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuja!). His advertising style is loud, slightly frenzied and more than a little obnoxious. He makes wild claims, backed by nothing other than his personal opinion. Which, I have to say, is just a bit BIASED.

My favorite of these claims is that the average person wouldn't know the difference between a Hyundai and a Jaguar, except for the price tag. His point being, why spend $30 grand on a Jag, when you can have the same car for $10? I driven both, and can say with some certainty that even a humpback tribal chief from Mabutu could tell you which car should have the silver cat on the hood.

His in-your-face campaigns seem to be working, much to my chagrin and dismay. Why do I care? Because it's only going to encourage the other car hucksters to copy him. That will force the Huge guy to raise the stakes and kick his laid-back selling style up a notch. I shudder to think of the level he can go to next. Well it's obvious, he will need to "Lasershark" his ads.

His current TV ad shows him high up in a cherry picker taunting a giant blow-up gorilla with inane comments about automobile quality and vague threats about shopping at another dealer, while occasionally punching the inflated ape on the nose.

I envision a better version of this spot, where he climbs into a cage with a real live ape. He'll wave his arms and tell the puzzled animal about how great the warranty is on the '05 models, and how the competitions sucks raw eggs. If we're lucky, the gorilla will tear his arms off and start whapping him over the head with his own bloody appendages, at which point he can turn to the camera and claim the intensity of the pain is "HUGE".