It's Very Cold in Chicago

Chuckles, Marketing, and Aliens

I just polished off a package of Chuckles jelly candies from the vending machine in our office and a few thoughts occurred to me:

• The flavors in Chuckles have never changed.
• I have never, in my life seen any advertising or marketing for Chuckles.
• I don't even know who the hell makes Chuckles. Is there a Web site?

The Flavors
In case you're curious, the official name of the five Chuckles flavors are: Cherry, Lime, Lemon, Licorice, and zesty Orange. As far as I know these have always been the flavors. They were introduced in 1921 and they haven't even CONSIDERED adding or changing the flavor, not even the black one in the middle that most people don't like. That's confidence! That's chutzpah! At some point wouldn't you expect a dude in marketing to come up and say "Hey, coconut's big this year, why don't we try out a Pina Colada Chuckle?" My guess is someone did and he was fired on the spot.

Marketing and Advertising
I assume that the people that make Chuckles have a marketing department. But I may be wrong. For all I know they're made by aliens. In any event, I know for a fact that I have never seen any consumer advertising for Chuckles. Have you? Yet I have eaten Chuckles throughout most of my life. They just seem to show up and periodically I buy them. I assume they are being marketed heavily to candy dealers. If not I can only assume they are indeed made by aliens and they're being beamed down to Earth without us even noticing.

OK, It's Not Aliens

Chuckles are actually made by Farley & Sathers and they do indeed have a Web site. The Web site is as retro as the packaging although while the packaging appears straight out of the sixties, the site merely seems straight out of the 80's. Farley & Sathers also manufacture other similarly semi-famous candy like Now & Later, Rain-Blo, Trolli, and Fruit Stripe (that's right!) I think I've actually seen a Fruit Stripe ad but other than a terrific product placement in Ferris Beuhler's Day Off for Trolli Gummy Bears, I think that's about it. Wait, maybe that was Haribo Gummy Bears. Someone should do a comparison.

Anyway, I think the reason that all this struck me me is that I was thinking how nice it must be to have a product that succeeds for over 80 years despite an utter lack of innovation, marketing, and style. Chuckles just show up. Hey, maybe that could be their tagline!

I seem to have a Chuckle left. Does anyone want the black one?

Dialog Box from Hades

I ran across this dialog box on the Microsoft Partner site. I read it three times, went and had a cup of coffee, came back and read it five more times. It's almost musical in its incoherency.

(Click for Larger Image)

I'm Scared of My Snowblower

There are 3 WARNINGS and 2 CAUTIONS on just this page of my new snowblower's operator manual. I fear starting it may end civilization as we know it.

(Click for Larger Image)

Duck and Cover!

Duck and Cover!

Gas Prices Are Interesting

According to this chart from GasBuddy.com we are in the midst of the steepest drop in gas prices in the last five years. It certainly already felt like it, but until I saw this chart I didn't realize how dramatic it has been historically. Almost two dollars in less than two months. I hope Exxon executives can keep their second butlers!

Safety Sign Generator

I had way too much fun with this safety sign generator.

Get Mouth Happy! Old Time Spud Cigarettes Commercials

Creepy Smiles

I wonder if I'm the only one totally creeped out by the smiles in this commercial.

The Everything Shaker

My favorite type of bagel is the "everything" bagel. However there never seems to be enough of the "everything" to satisfy me. Hence, I created the "Everything Shaker" (click for larger image). Now, in addition to the baked-in "everything" that comes on the bagel I can shake on a little more to the other side. Now everything is everywhere and all is good with the world.

Everything is:

• Poppy seeds
• Sesame seeds
• Flake salt
• Minced garlic
• Minced onion

If the holes are large enough you could also add sunflower kernels.

Dr. Horrible Y'all

The 10 Commandments of PowerPoint Presentations

Every presentation and every audience is different. The rules below apply to actual presentations where an idea or product is being sold. These rules don't necessarily apply to small group project meetings, classes, etc.

1. Have a good, well thought out, story and tell it well. PowerPoint will not save a bad presentation. The slides are just there to help support you by providing a framework for your words.
2. Use handouts. Let the audience know they'll be getting the notes at the end, but don't hand them out at the beginning unless you want to be ignored.
3. Use interesting professional stock photo images, not cheesy clipart. If you can't come up with a good, evocative, relevant image, don't use one.
4. Only use transitions, animations, and effects if they're important to your story and help clarify a concept. Don't use them just to use them. At times an animated "building slide" can help you maintain audience focus on individual points. 
5. Build your presentation from an outline. Put the whole story together first, and then start refining. You can use an outline format of your own choosing or you can try PowerPoint's outline view. In either case, purge slides ruthlessly. Your audience will thank you.
6. Use fonts that are large enough for the room to see, not just the people in front. If you are forced to use smaller font, you're likely trying to cram too much on one page. You should never have to say "sorry for the eye chart everyone." What's the point of showing a slide no one can read? You're better off without it or, at least, breaking it into two slides.
   
7. Practice. Practice makes professionals…in anything. Present to someone who knows the material and someone who doesn't. They'll both help you fill in the gaps and you will pick up valuable changes. If possible, record yourself and watch it. You will no doubt cringe several times, but better you than your audience. 
8. Don't try to cram every slide with text, charts, images, and the like. Some of the most powerful, effective slides are less than ten words. If you need to use a chart keep it simple. It should make a point without too much narrative needed.
9. Don't use more than 3-4 bullet points per slide, and use "sub-bullets" sparingly, if at all. If they're there to help you remember what to say, refer to rule 7. You want your audience listening to you, not reading slides.
10. Don't put all your notes up on the slide, put them on index cards, work from an outline, or memorize them. You may also prefer to use PowerPoint's Notes pages. Just make sure to delete them if you hand out the slides.
    

Own Your Own Slice of Generator Land

We've just added some personalization stuff at Generator Land. Now our intrepid GL faithful can create their own pages and save their generated nonsense for posterity. The pages can be shared or listed in our member directory. It's pretty cool. We're already generatin' new features for personal pages. More to come.

My page is at http://www.generatorland.com/glmembers.php?napdynmite

Lindsay Lohan Wants to Be Marilyn Monroe

So The Lohan posed for a bunch of nude and semi-nude photos in the hopes of being labeled the next Marilyn Monroe. Given Marilyn's career path I'm not sure that's such a wise ambition. Perhaps she should just roll the dice at the "Spoiled Starlet Headline Generator" instead. It would be a much safer bet.

(NSFW)

I was talking to a friend today about the concept of having a low "Campaign cap" on presidential candidates to ensure we got a better cross-section of citizens in the race (not just rich people), when it occurred to me maybe there's a way we could take advantage of the unstoppable force that is reality TV to elect our next president.

Maybe we could take a little bit from the each of the different reality TV concepts and combine them into a new electoral process:

Let's narrow the field using the American Idol concept. Following a background check, travel to several major metropolitan areas, bring in every Tom, Dick, and Hillary that wants to be president and run them by a panel of judges from mixed backgrounds with no party allegiance. Maybe a cop, a hairdresser, a college professor, a cattle rancher, and a hip-hop record producer (I'm just thinking out loud here). Candidates give a 60-second stump speech and get evaluated by the panel. Once the panel weeds out the truly lame candidates, the rest get presented to the American Public who narrow the field down to 15.

Next up, is The Apprentice portion of the competition. Task each candidate with a series of political problems and scenarios to work out. Solve a healthcare crisis, use diplomacy to stop two countries from going to war, deal with charges of philandering, whatever. Have them work together as well as individually. Rate the results objectively and narrow the field to 8.

Finally we move to Survivor. Put all eight remaining candidates on an island and let them prove they're healthy and cagey enough make it in the Washington jungle. The winner gets four years in the White House. And a Toyota Prius.

This is just one idea. If you have another in the same vein let me know.

A Great Article About Planning a Presentation

I thought this was an excellent piece from "Rands in Repose" about how to plan a presentation. I discovered that I actually already follow a few of the tips, but many of them were brilliant and new to me. I especially like the idea of practicing your presentation immediately after roughing out the slides. Why? As the author says:

"Build confidence. You now know the absolute worst case scenario regarding this presentation. There is no way it could be worse than what you just went through."

http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/cat_tech_life.html

Nice Canned Surveys

I was looking for some Web User Satisfaction survey samples and ran across this site:

http://www.vovici.com/efm-innovation/reference/survey-templates.asp

Vovici is a survey/feedback/marketing vendor and shares a lot of nice survey templates free of charge. Good deal.

If the Pizza Is As Bad As the Web Site...

A Web site can make you look more professional or experienced than you are. However, sometimes it can make you look like an idiot even if you have a good product or service. This is especially important for small business who don't have big marketing budgets and rely on the Web for part of their lead generation.

The site below is a pizza place that I've never tried that's a few block from our house. I decided not to order from them simply because their Web Site sucks. It's a good thing they've littered their site with Google AdSense ads (and a LOT of other things) because I can't imagine a lot of people will buy their pizza based on the site itself.

http://www.jackstrawspizza.com/index.html

Top Ten Top Album Lists on the Web

Each January I go back through the various "Top Album" lists and start dumping music from Rhapsody onto my MP3 player (gotta love subscription music services!)

This year I Delicious-ed all my favorite Top Album lists to make it easier. Feel free to take advantage:

http://del.icio.us/napdynmite/2007+music

Collection of Disaster Preparedness Items

Emergency Items

• Mini-pry bar
• Respiratory Protection (particulate protection)
• Nuke Alert radiation detector
• Bicycle
• First Aid Kit
• Solar Powered Lantern/Power Source
• Grab and Go Bag
• Non-Incendive Flashlight (LED Flashlight)
• Multitool
• Portable Water Filtration Unit
• Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation
• Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food
• Store at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food.Select foods that require no refrigeration, preparation or cooking and little or no water.
  
  • Pack a manual can opener and eating utensils.
  • Avoid salty foods, as they will make you thirsty.
  • Choose foods your family will eat.
  • Ready-to-eat canned meats, fruits and vegetables
  • Protein or fruit bars
  • Dry cereal or granola
  • Peanut butter
  • Dried fruit
  • Nuts
  • Crackers
  • Canned juices
  • Non-perishable pasteurized milk
  • High energy foods
  • Vitamins
  • Food for infants
  • Comfort/stress foods
  
  
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both
• Flashlight and extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Two pairs of Latex, or other sterile gloves (if you are allergic to Latex).
• Sterile dressings to stop bleeding.
• Cleansing agent/soap and antibiotic towelettes to disinfect.
• Antibiotic ointment to prevent infection.
• Burn ointment to prevent infection.
• Adhesive bandages in a variety of sizes.
• Eye wash solution to flush the eyes or as general decontaminant.
• Thermometer (Read more: Biological Threat)
• Prescription medications you take every day such as insulin, heart medicine and asthma inhalers. You should periodically rotate medicines to account for expiration dates.
• Prescribed medical supplies such as glucose and blood pressure monitoring equipment and supplies.
• Scissors
• Tweezers
• Tube of petroleum jelly or other lubricant
• Aspirin or nonaspirin pain reliever
• Anti-diarrhea medication
• Antacid (for upset stomach)
• Laxative
  
  
• Whistle to signal for help
• Dust mask, to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)
• Local maps
• Prescription medications and glass
• Infant formula and diapers
• Pet food and extra water for your pet
• Important family documents such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account records in a waterproof, portable container
• Cash or traveler's checks and change
• Emergency reference material such as a first aid book or information from www.ready.gov
• Sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person. Consider additional bedding if you live in a cold-weather climate.
• Complete change of clothing including a long sleeved shirt, long pants and sturdy shoes. Consider additional clothing if you live in a cold-weather climate.
• Household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper – When diluted nine parts water to one part bleach, bleach can be used as a disinfectant. Or in an emergency, you can use it to treat water by using 16 drops of regular household liquid bleach per gallon of water. Do not use scented, color safe or bleaches with added cleaners.
• Fire Extinguisher
• Matches in a waterproof container
• Feminine supplies and personal hygiene items
• Mess kits, paper cups, plates and plastic utensils, paper towels
• Paper and pencil
• Books, games, puzzles or other activities for children