Wistful Thinking » Ponderable

BOGO on Eyes

admin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:00:34 +0000

No thanks. I already have two!

This is not a blog post

admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:00:35 +0000

“If it quacks like a duck…”
Although this is one of several posts on a blog, this is not a blog post.
I received an interesting piece of [junk] mail the other day. It was from AT&T and an obvious attempt to convince me buy more services. We all have received these letters with an attached check. Well, it is quite obvious it is not real check. But a common marketing technique to make you feel like you are getting money (which is really in the form of a ‘discount’ when you buy*)in its aggressive marketing had been sending promotional mail with what appeared to be a check. We all have received them. We realized it was a ‘marketing ploy’. Apparently, not eveyone.
So, I can understand that, in an effort to protect [the naive?], a law was passed that mandates it be clearly identified as not a real check.
So when I saw this I was immediately struck by the irony. It is actually comical that they continue to print what looks like a check, with the text to disclaim that it is not a check. How silly is that?

*I have trouble perceiving this as money in my pocket. It nothing more than an artificial discount on the cost of a service I was not interested in purchasing in the first place! But that discussion is a subject for a future post.

An Engineer

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:30:41 +0000

I work in an evironment surrounded by very smart people (I call them “people with letters after their name”). Most of them hold a degree (or two) in one of the many branches of Engineering.
The popular phrase to describe Optimism vs. Pessimism has been adjusted in our case:

Superstition

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:01:34 +0000

In 2009, we will have at least three occurances of Friday the 13th. What seems like an even more startling coincidence is the fact that February and then March will see the 13th fall on a Friday.
In honor of this momentous occassion, I feel obliged to remind you of my sincere belief:

It is bad luck to be superstitious.

On each of those fateful fridays I will, likely, be:

Under a ladder
on a crack
repairing a mirror I broke
while throwing salt over my shoulder
because a black cat crossed my path