Tractor joke redux

I posted the all time best ever joke in the world here some time ago. We’re talking June 2006.

Today I got a comment on that post from someone I don’t know rewriting the tractor joke to make it longer and slightly more awesome.

Kudos to you Michael Edwards.

“Ok so there was this man who was fascinated by tractors he liked tractors so much he changed his name to tractor. He brought his own land and called it tractor and then changed his house to tractor and his road to tractor so his address was tractor, tractor, tractor, and tractor. He even reshaped his own to a tractor design he woke up one day in his tractor shaped bed and wearing his tractor print pyjamas and went down his stairs which had tractor carpet on and then he sat down on his tractor shaped chair at his tractor shaped table eating his tractor shaped toast reading the tractor times. When he read in the tractor times that there was a tractor convention in the local fields near his house in tractor. He was so excited he changed from his tractor pyjamas to his tractor outfit and put on his tractor shoes. He left his tractor house in tractor, tractor and got onto his tractor he had lots of tractors almost every tractor he could find… when he got to the tractor convention he saw the most amazing tractor. He thought it was the best. No he knew it was the best tractor he had ever seen… he went up to the guy who owned it and said. “Excuse me How much is your tractor?”… The guy who owned it thought “hmm I could get a lot of money for this” so he said, ” how much are you willing to pay?” now Tractor being the joker he is said “will a tenner cover it?”, the man who owned the tractor didn’t find this very funny, he thought he was insulting his tractor so he punched him and knocked out Tractor for a few hours. When he woke up he realised he was in a tractor convention and without knowing what had happened he saw this most amazing tractor and asked the guy how much he would sell it for so the owner thought “hmm I could make some money here” so he says, how much are you willing to pay. So Tractor being the joker that he is and not knowing what had happened previously said “will a tenner cover it?” so the man who owned it was very angry he thought he was insulting his tractor, so he hit him hard on the nose and he was knocked out. He woke up the next day and had no idea what had happened but realise he was in a tractor convention and he saw best tractor he had ever seen… he went up to the guy who owned it and said. “Excuse me How much is your tractor?”… The guy who owned it thought “hmm I could get a lot of money for this if he jokes again I will kill him, so he says “how much are you willing to pay for it” so Tractor being the joker that he is and not knowing what had happened previously said “will a tenner cover it? The man was Furious, he punched Tractor so hard he was out cold for a week… when he woke up he hadn’t remembered a thing the convention had gone and all he knew was that he didn’t like tractors anymore. So he changed everything back so he lived in an ordinary house number in an ordinary road in an ordinary town with an ordinary name. He woke up and got out of his ordinary bed in his ordinary pyjamas and wearing his ordinary slippers he goes down his ordinary stairs to his ordinary table eating his ordinary toast reading his ordinary newspaper. And he is very bored so he decides to go to an ordinary pub to order an ordinary beer. He goes into a pub and it is so Smokey he can’t even see his hand In front of his face so he leaves and goes out to find another pub buy he cant find one so he decides the last pub would have to do… he goes into the pub and breathes in all the smoke and breathes it out the door… the barman goes up to him and says, “how did you do that? I’ve been trying to get rid of that smoke for weeks”. The ordinary man says “oh That’s easy I’m an Extractor Fan!”

November 6, 2008

Red vs Blue

Red vs Blue was a cool machinima production featuring Halo characters.
If you haven’t discovered it – you should.
Today is all about this Red v Blue (a map of election results)  – I want to be able to say “I told you so” my first endorsement of Obama was in March 2007 – right here. I really want to say I told you so in particular to Ben who tried his hardest to pick candidates nobody had heard of and assure me they would do well.

November 5, 2008

shoe croc, don’t bother me

Ok, so these ones do. And that title is a really bad pun. But fresh from talking about a sticky situation involving the Coogee Bay Hotel, we have been confronted with our own PR crisis.

For those of you not familiar with the story here’s the précis, the tourism dependent community of Magnetic Island was recently in lock down as a rogue crocodile terrorised the bays and streets of the island. But the plot thickened – it turned out the EPA, in its infinite wisdom, had captured the crocodile in Far North Queensland and released it near Townsville. Then, as it began wreaking havoc upon the poor island, they couldn’t catch it. This of course led to calls from the ever reliable walking quote machine, Bob Katter, for a croc cull. Crocodile leather is desirable for shoes, hand bags and other accesories – they also interfere with our right to enjoyment of nature – or so the argument goes. It was eventually caught – only to die in captivity a day later – an autopsy revealed that the croc’s stomache was lined with plastic bags, and other rubbish which led to its untimely demise. Untimely, arguably because it should have died three weeks earlier.

This was a PR nightmare for all involved (except Bob Katter).

In particular:
The EPA now stand accused of killing some small businesses due to their ridiculous “crocs in space” program. They had an electronic tag on the crocodile and still couldn’t find it. They mishandled the situation allowing operator after operator to front the media lambasting them and demanding compensation – the State Government pretty much ruled it out on the spot – and now can count on no votes from Magnetic Island at the upcoming election. Even the greenies hate them because the croc died. It’s all their fault.

The Magnetic Island operators themselves have done as much as possible to tarnish the region’s image – by yelling “CROC” from the roof tops and going about dealing with the Government in an inappropriate manner. They shot themselves in the foot (they should have just shot the croc). The local tourism industry – Magnetic Island is the “jewel in our crown.” That’s the official line. I know because I wrote it. Now, in the mind of the uneducated consumer it is no longer a pristine island destination with safe beaches – it’s a garbage filled wasteland populated by deadly crocs. The tourism minister proclaimed crocs as “good for tourism.” That, according to those on the ground was untrue. That line only works when describing Australia Zoo and other crocodile farms. Crocodiles on public beaches are bad for tourism. The plastic bags, in all likelihood, came from far north Queensland, where the waters are messy. I wanted to run a media release on that basis titled “Far North Queensland full of old Cairns and plastic bags” – but I was outvoted. Common sense prevailed.

November 5, 2008

Word up

I’m seriously considering moving this blog to wordpress. So, my five loyal readers, I am humbly seeking your advice.

While I enjoy being part of the google family (ie blogger, gmail, picasa, reader etc…) WordPress just seems so much nicer, cleaner, more functional… but to get some of the real functionality I’m after I may have to pay some money.

Incidently, I have been playing with WordPress and imported this blog to a WordPress account – I average about 4 comments per post – I seem to be pretty down on comments in the last six months though, I guess that’s what a long lay off will do. Or maybe I’m now boring.

Here are my pros and cons so far:
Blogger:
Pros
1. Allows me to email posts to my blog using a special, secret email address – but from anywhere – this is handy because it means I can appear to be working but actually blogging.
2. Allows Ben to receive my posts by email – I’m not sure he’d be able to get them so passively if I made the switch.
3. It’s what I’ve always known so the status quo bias probably plays some part in making me stay here.
4. It allows me to easily edit the layout CSS – which gives me freedom to significantly change things up if I so desired.
Cons
1. (Big one) Blogger doesn’t have all the functionality that I like in WordPress (ie creating pages that aren’t posts, other nice layout things, the ability to post delicious bookmark lists as a post quickly and easily)

WordPress
Pros
1. It looks nicer
2. It has a better user interface
3. It’s a properly dedicated blogging service – not part of a huge, all powerful global conglomerate.
4. It has developed some really nice little tools – and the third party plug in developments don’t all look like stupid games created by stupid people – seriously, check out the list of add ons for Blogger some time…
5. You can have extra pages, better tag sorting (not that I use tags much, but I think I should), it is very functional while still being stylish.
6. I only have about 5 readers anyway – I reckon most of you would make the move with me (other than Ben).

Cons
1. I’m scared of/resistant to change.
2. Ben would have to use a browser or RSS reader to access my rambling posts.

So there you have it. Comments? Here’s the wordpress version with a default template that I’d play with…

November 5, 2008

Sign of the times

If there’s one thing I hate more than atheists advertising on buses (actually I don’t hate that – “probably no God” – where’s the commitment…) – it’s so called “Christians” doing nutty things to give the rest of us a bad name.

The Westboro Baptist church systematically protests at the funerals of dead US soldiers becaues they believe the US system’s lax stance on homosexuality. I don’t think they read the bits in the bible where Jesus hangs out with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors… anyway, kudos to this guy for his funny sign campaign. If you can’t beat them – join them.

October 30, 2008

McCain is a PC, Obama is a Mac… almost…

I once went to a branding seminar where VirginBlue marketing guru Sean Cummins said the best way to position your brand is to ask “what sort of car am I” and then see where and how that type of car is being advertised. Cheap market research.

Well, Landor and Associates, an American market research company, has just released their “Candidates as brands” survey.

As far as cars go – Obama is a BMW, while Biden, Palin and McCain are all Fords.

In the personal computing stakes – arguably currently the most interesting advertising feud at present – McCain, Palin and Biden all come in as PCs – Obama scored a dead heat and is both a PC and a Mac.



October 29, 2008

Scatological eschatology

Toilet humour is not something this blog dabbles in. I don’t think I’ve used the word “poo” except to describe cat poo coffee on a few occasions. But this story from Coogee about the poo in the icecream has really piqued my interest.

I was at the Coogee Bay Hotel just days after the alleged incident occured completely oblivious – luckily when in Coogee I choose to purchase my gelato from gelatissimo. If I was in Coogee I’d be steering clear of iced magic topped ice cream for the forseeable future.

There have been some great quotes coming out of what is after all a pretty crap situation. Like these:

“You made my mum eat poo!” – Mrs Whyte’s children screamed at a staff member in the pub.
“There’s nothing to indicate that staff working on the day were responsible, it was frozen, so it could have happened at any time,” the lawyer for the Whyte family.
“We just don’t know who’s handled it, how it’s been handled over the three weeks, whether it’s been abused in some way,” Food Authority spokesman Alan Valvasori said. 

What this does go to show – once and for all – is that not all publicity is good publicity. This is probably the beginning of the end for the Coogee Bay Hotel – or at least its staff.*  A quick google on news results for “coogee bay” makes it seem like a pretty unappealing holiday destination. It’ll be a while before the pub can repair its reputation with the punters – let alone make light of the situation – but my guess is that ice cream with chocolate topping will be off the menu for some time. 

And now, a poo joke:

Q – What’s brown and sticky?
A – Icecream at the Coogee Bay Hotel

Really, that’s not very funny at all – and it’s not something I’m proud of. I am eagerly anticipating the outcome of this story though – it’s proved pretty popular on news sites around the country so I don’t think we’ve heard the last of it.

* I don’t really think that – it just ties in with the heading nicely and makes it make sense.

October 29, 2008

Fake or not?

The YouTube comments are divided (and contain strong language).

I’m thinking fake.

But still, with a 3.5m croc terrorising Magnetic Island – this could be our new tourism ad.

October 27, 2008

Obama gets an aaay plus

With the Fonz in his corner who can stand against him.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB5CLV18NBw&hl=en&fs=1]

October 23, 2008

chinese cowboys

The local chinese takeaway has a rather incongruous cowboys poster to match mao dynasty decor and the obese goldfish.

October 23, 2008

Poster post

This is pretty cool. A graphic design company has released a series of movie posters featuring the products “placed” in those movies as stars.

October 23, 2008

This is cool

October 23, 2008

Putting the fun into PDFundo

http://pdfundo.net/convert/ – this might be worth keeping in mind if you ever have to unPDF a document.

One of the girls at work just used it and it worked. 

Now to find a PDF to convert. 

October 23, 2008

Putting the “product” in production

Following my post earlier today regarding the product placement posters – here are some interesting snippets from this SMH story today. It seems paying for product placement is no guarantee you’ll make the final cut – particularly in the new James Bond movie.
 
“Researcher the Nielsen Company reports that in the six months to the end of June 2008, the product placement market rose 11.7 per cent in the United States on the corresponding period in 2007.”
 
“…after years of Bond movies being used as vehicles to market watches, cars, clothes and phones, product placement in the latest movie is relatively restrained. Aston Martin, Smirnoff vodka, Sony and Virgin Atlantic may have paid millions but there is no guarantee their brand will be in the movie.”
 
“It appears everyone has learnt from the nadir of product placement – 2002’s Die Another Day – which had 25 brands, leading it to be dubbed Buy Another Day.”
 
Sony Ericsson saw a 20 % rise in sales after Casino Royale was released.

October 23, 2008

AN ODE TO CAPS LOCK

TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY* IN THE US (THE 22ND OF OCTOBER).
I DON’T KNOW WHY ALL CAPS HAS SUCH A BAD NAME.
 
OTHER NETIQUETTE RULES MAKE SENSE – AND ARE DESIGNED FOR A REASON. THIS ONE JUST SEEMS TO BE TO REDUCE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.
 
I DO NOT FEEL LIKE I AM SHOUTING – BUT CONVENTION SAYS THAT TO POST IN THIS MANNER IS TO SHOUT RUDELY.
 
I SAY CONVENTION IS RIDICULOUS. WHAT SAY YOU?
 
I would like to know where this rule comes from – but I can’t seem to find anything. Other than it just became broadly accepted because someone said so. Please. Enlighten me.
 
Part of the celebration of International Caps Lock Day is designing useful hacks to get your caps lock key to do something other than capitalise your writing**. I’m not sure what I’d get it to do.
 
Also, I think it odd that the Caps Lock key is not written in all caps. I also wonder why the keyboard is presented with capital letters when you have to hit shift to make the letters capitals by default.
 
Also – when it comes to capitals – we are minimalists according to our corporate style guide as mentioned previously. I still think you’re better off indicating that you’re shouting by using shouty words – ALL CAPS is just hard to read.  
 
* That link contains swearing and generally bad English.
** This one probably has swearing but the English is ok.

October 23, 2008