...a note..

Elvis has NOT left the building. Yet.

What are you good Ad?

Its been a truly yawning gap since my last post. Work in office was a bitch!
Also, am married!!! (No Pun Intended, OK??)

The other day, my wife was cribbing about their (Ad) agency not getting even a single nomination at the local awards. This despite some of their work to be far better than the works of the winning ticket, apparently! My wife’s agency is a large MNC but with clients that can influence apocryphal mood swings in her, that I fear I’d very soon end up on the wall, on a foto frame with a smoking agarbathi (Incense).

Am a lay person, and to me Ads are the time you run to the loo, or catch up a bite or quickly browse what’s on other channels. In print, Ads are where I keep my coffee mug so it doesn’t block my read. On the roads, my attention is drawn, since school, to the Amul butter Ads and those that show a nice, healthy looking woman saying something that is completely ignored or over-shadowed by ooommpphh!

Agree, there are some very good examples of creative excellence, but how effective are most of it in getting the cash registers ringing for the brands?
Definitely not like this Ad, actually a super slink advert induced sales, that happened in Winnipeg, Canada. Only difference, this ad was thought of by the brand owners themselves!

This one came out in a free farmer’s journal and in a handful of other rural and small town papers catering more to the agricultural fraternity. It was that of a super-efficient bug killer. A crop-bug killing instrument, to be more precise.
The Ad goes something like this:

“a sure-fire, quick-kill, instant, always ready potato bug killer. It never missed, and easy to use. Only $1.50 or $1.25. Even a child can use it”, the ads said.
Now, rural Canada was constantly faced with the menace of bugs and what kinda toothless farmer didn’t have a dollar to spare??
There was a formal warning as well, “Limited Stocks Only, Order Now and Don’t Be Told We Ran Out Of Stock”. Now that sure did kick in the urgency and in a week, by the time the papers realized and removed the Ad, over 10,000 pieces were sold pre-paid to the hapless farmers who sure got the marvelous invention.

Two small pieces of wood, with an instruction Manual that read:
“Place the bug on one piece and crush immediately with the other using your own hands. Very Easy, even a child can use!”

See Creativity??

Pubbers Become Celebs!!!

Couple of friends drinking in a bar on a weekend. Engaged in spirited conversation that bounces between arguments and curses. Vehement disagreement and a bet is laid. So far, nothing extra-ordinary. Things like this happen all the time, everywhere.

But not so between Jules and Michael. A beer place, an argument, a bet and then celeb status. Nice, uh? When Michael argued that most Celebs don’t care or go out of the way to take time out for a member of the general public, Jules defied and the bet was born. 100 out of the 500 celeb list Michael draws out are to be contacted and a memento procured, to win. Jules posts his progress on this website on a daily basis and has apparently hit a cult following in the UK. There are rules, as there always are, and prizes too, but the best thing about the whole do is, all the proceeds that come by way of auctioning out the mementos will go to charity. Splendid!

Jules has already met Cherie Blair, John Major, Charles Kennedy, Lord Archer, Sir Patrick Moore etc, to name a few. He has quite a few more names, which in my limited knowledge of British celebrities, don’t ring a bell.
Also, he is nominated by the Yahoo! Search Find of the Year Award 2005. To get this bloke to win, perhaps all you guys can visit his site to increase the traffic.
To help someone intending to help others, is helping others.

Wishing Jules all the best in his endeavor.

Letter of Resignation

One of my friend called me a couple of days back and asked me to write a resignation letter for him. He works for an Apparel Company that procures orders from American and European labels and mass produces here in India. He was pretty pissed after having put 5 years of hard work and is terribly disgruntled in terms of self-gratification achieved. However, the resignation letter he asked me was not supposed to look anything like the one I wrote for him (below), instead, was to be a nicely worded polite, official one.

For those who are not familiar with the functions of Garment Export Industry, here’s a quick overview to better figure out certain technicalities mentioned in the letter.

Ø Buyers are clients or International labels that source garments from Asian countries and sell it in their markets, usually, the developed world for ludicrously high prices.
Ø Ship Cancel dates are dates by which an certain order quantity has to be put in a ship to sail out, failing which, the buyer will claim the goods in huge discounts that usually dries up all profits.
Ø Quality is closely scrutinized and borders around harassment leaving us too stressed out to meet deliveries, which usually is touch and go.
Ø Quality control guys are mercenaries who are trained to reject everything the 1st time around. In some countries, it is legal to kill them.


Letter of Resignation

Dear Whoever

This January 5th, I would have completed 5 years at this organization. I must mention right away that these 5 years has been glorious in terms of what was learnt and achieved and how far more educated I am from the day I started.

What I have learnt in this course of time will, no doubt help me deal with some extra ordinary types of assholes in the future company I might work for, there are also some pearls of wisdom that I cannot help but point out, such as:

Garment manufacturing is a glorified tailoring business.

No matter how hard you try, the jerks we call buyer and to whom we swore a lifelong servitude, is harder to please than a whore on discount.

The friggin series of matching - thread, color, fabric, buttons, zippers, vomit etc that we do so religiously everyday, only fuels the audacity to exercise their power to reject as though the end consumer will commit suicide if the buttons were fucking plastic or metal or made of cowdung and has the color of an octopus's fart!

If the shipment does not meet the agreed Ship Cancel Date, large communities of anxious consumers will shoot each other in mental delirium or die of starvation, that’s how Africa as we know it now, was born.

Having said the above, I must also add that my personal life is in shambles. There used to be times when I used to dream of beaches and semi nude bodies and wake up with a purpose. Now, I am a hopeless insomniac, a drunk, and dream of calendars with morbid dates circled in Red.

In hindsight, there is not much pride to take to my grave, and as I look forward, the promise is as good as 2 litres of pee in a punctured balloon. If you think am disillusioned and need a shrink, you are right, I am on my way to the asylum but not before I introduce you to a mad dog with herpes that specializes in biting off genitals.

Therefore, to preserve my fast depleting sanity and to restore LIFE into the days I live, I Quit.

Yours Truly

P.S: My friend liked it so much that he submitted this to his boss!

Aviophobia - A Disorder That Makes Me Grin Like an Idiot!

Have always wondered if it were a better idea to give the safety instructions for air travel outside at the Air Ticket booking counter. It doesn’t make much difference when they start the discourse when the plane is already taxying for take-off at an average speed that usually is fast enough to splatter humans on the ground like locusts on your speeding car’s windshield.

The stewardesses talk so mundanely as if it’s a common thing for a plane to dive into the sea or crash in mid-air. “When the air pressure drops, the over head oxygen masks will drop automatically which, you must grab in order to protect your nose and mouth while the rest of your body is burning at 6000 degrees Celsius, thankyou”

“The life vest is placed under your seat which, when the plane lands(??) on water, you must wear and pull the yellow knob to inflate” …..are they saying they have runways on water?? After landing, what then?? Are you supposed to bob in the ocean until the Rescue arrives or the Great Whites?? Have you heard of any commercial airlines making successful water landings??

I’d rather they said, “In the unlikely event of a crash, the pilot will distribute some crack to all on board to roll a joint, for those who don’t do drugs, booze will be administered intravenously”

“Hi, this is your captain Jeb speaking, Whatever Airlines welcome you on board Flight # 274 to …hey what’s that, GOD NO LOOKOUT., YYYEAAAARRRGGGHHHHH”

I don’t know if am crazy, but every time in the flight, am overcome with many possibilities of death. An average plane has about 5 million parts, most of which apparently are crucial and the average rate of mechanical things that can go wrong is about 1 in 1 million, which increases my chances by 5 times!
Am not the kind that suffer from airplane phobia, but what’s worse is, the casual acceptance that death will be sudden, painless and in large groups, makes me look like a sadist, ….am I?? Hell no, ask the others!

However, in mid-flights, especially in long hauls, when most co-passengers are dozing, there’s an eerie silence pervading the cabin that sounds like the prelude to mayhem. I’ve seen in movies. So in order to divert my attention, I come up with distractive comedy to amuse myself, ofcourse in my mind, thinking of various scenarios such as:

“This is flight 234, calling Bombay ATC, Do you hear?”
“This is who??….”
“Flight 234, do you read, come in Bby ATC”
“Do you know what time it is, asshole”
Click.

“Passengers are requested to put their seat belts on, bend forward, yeah, with one knee on top of the other and take a deep breath, now put your right hand into one loop of your folded leg on the opposite and the other hand likewise, tighten up, now, tell us where the friggin diamonds are”

“This is your captain speaking, looks like we have a problem with the right engine. We are trying to restart by shutting down all on-board systems, please do not open windows”

“Uh-oh”

“This is a non-smoking flight, except of course, when things blow up”

“May day, May Day, This is Flight 745 calling ATC for help”
“This is LAX ATC, come in Flight 745”
“Well that’s the problem Lax, we aren’t coming in no more, dickheads!”

Guess am incorrigible!!!

WTO - We Want Your Money (6th Round)

What’s the WTO meet trying to achieve?? Every year, many top dignitaries of member countries fix up a date, time, place, airline tickets and hotel rooms to meet up and unanimously agree the other is a whole country of shameless robbers and gravediggers.
There are 2 main groups that sit on either side of the divide, one that is highly industrialized and thus rich with sky rocketing employee benefits and social welfare that makes even the cost of a pretzel seem like that of a Rolls-Royce jet engine while the other can make near rolls-Royce jet engines at the cost of a Pretzel with labor benefits a little better than buying adequate amount of toilet paper for the whole family for a whole year.

They met in Singapore, in Doha, in Cancun, and now in Hong kong and each is called a round and this is the 6th round of ministerial level talks. After so many rounds of talks, many elderly members are already feeling dizzy and are ready to vomit on the microphone while delivering an important repartee.
They discuss important issues like, Why Indian Cobras lost their appetite for Brazilian Bull Frogs?? Will they eat Chinese frogs or Chinese farmers?? What tastes better? What’s for Europe in this?? Since English Europeans coined the words, Bull Frog, Cobra and Farmer, whatever whoever eats anywhere, should pay us patency taxes! Hahaha!

While leaders of Asian countries feverishly defend their interests by bunking the conference and lounging in topless massage parlors, drunk out of their skull, the Americans are looking for WMD. The EU wants a cut in every word traded in the Asian and South American markets, while the Americans want to push their biggest export commodity – The CIA, which is responsible for Poverty in Africa, Bad Weather and Saliva.

Amidst all this annual pre-planned chaos, comes the annual pre-planned protest. People from different walks of life join together well in advance to write catchy phrases on placards, denouncing the WTO which, according to them “are a bunch of weasels out to ruin us” These are the guardians of Social Justice and Equal Opportunity, taking off from their work, to relentlessly fight against global capitalist hegemony, breaking away from apathy and telling the world in resounding solidarity, “Beer Rocks!”

While the protest is the most colorful cultural event that the various TV crews capture while the boring meetings are underway, the whole world watches re-runs of the NBA, Cricket or King Kong.

3 wishes, Ribbit!

Three things I’d love to do atleast once in my life:

To give into the urge to deboard my train and get on the train in the opposite platform that goes back to my town, whenever I return from Kerala.
To drive off in a 4x4 on a rainy day to Kerala via Mysore, Bandipur, Wyanad, Chamarassery, Tirunelly, Mananthavady and enter Thalassery.
To call up my boss one fine morning and tell him am on my way driving to Goa and the report that was due from me will have to wait until I return. If he asks when I’d return, I’d say, “That depends….!”

As you can see, I have very simple desires to bring about happiness and a sense of great fulfillment, that am quite easy to be pleased, but when it actually comes down to doing it, reality opens its mouth like a crazy crocodile about to bite my head off.

Wish 1 is something that am very close to doing, perhaps in one of the few trips that’s coming up. Wish 2 however, is very doable and very much normal, but for the lack of a 4x4 SUV. Am working on it and will get atleast a 2nd hand very soon.Wish 3 is a totally different ball game altogether, its not like getting an SUV or whimsically doing a U-turn back into Kerala. This is like getting the crocodile open its mouth and placing my head into it. If I had a rich father, or a rich heirless uncle, I would have applied by now for a hundred jobs only to do this in the very 1st month. Nevertheless, I am working on this too!!!!

Mt.Rushmore - the world’s largest sculpted monument. The carved faces are so realistic…

…that we now finally figured who’s behind it!!!