The Captain's Blog

2006-12-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

2005-12-19T14:52:00.000-08:00

The other day I saw an ad for the Flinstone's Christmas special and a thought occured to me...Where are the Jewish cavemen/women?

Why do I think that there are no Jews on the Flintstones? Simple. What would they eat? Fred and Barney are always eating Bronto-Burgers and Terrodactyl eggs with would hardy suit a "kosher" diet. Clearly vegetable are not part of anyone's diet in Bedrock, so the question remains, how would Jews survive in the caveworld?

2005-12-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

The other day I had the good fortune to dine at an authentic tex-mex style restaurant: Montana's. For those Texans or Chi-chi's diehards reading this article, who are currently reverse tracking my IP address and loading your shotguns to head on over to my house...I am of course, being sarcastic. Not a single one of us would ever consider Montana's "authentic" in any way, except for the authentic diarrhea following one of their meals. Nonetheless, that doesn't stop the "marketing-wizards" behind this latest cholesterol cafe from trying to fool us into thinking that we have traveled back in time to the old west...

One of the fascinating things that I discovered as I was zipping my way to the bathroom after another delightful meal at this establishment was that even the washroom had a "air" of the old west. As my eyes eagerly scanned the place for the sign reading "Bathrooms" or "Washrooms", they eventually came to rest upon the Old-Westernized "Outhouses" beacon. Of course in my state of colo-rectal anxiety, my brain took some time to travel through my Wild-West dictionary of repertoire, derived from episodes of Bonanza and Clint Eastwood flicks, to finally translate the "Outhouse" reference.

It's not that I don't enjoy playing the guess-what-the-washroom-is-called game while my bladder is swelling to the size of a watermelon from all the free-refills or that the Nachos-Grande is making a run for the border, but it looks like those franchise marketing wieners have screwed us again.

Did these geniuses think that the average Alice Fazoolies customer actually thinks that they are in Italy and hence would be frozen in absolute panic if the bathrooms were labeled in English (“Men” and “Women”, instead “Bambinos” and whatever the hell girl is in Italian)? Or that the average Casey’s patron would mistake this salmonella production factory with a trip back in time to the old west where they can order authentic frontier foods like “Fish N’Chips” and “Vegetarian Burgers”?

My only conclusion to this blatant lack of connection with the patrons that visit these franchises is that in order to be successful in franchise marketing, one must be so full of crap that going to the washroom would only hinder success.

2005-12-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

Apparently Brittany Spears has kicked out her Hubbie Kevin (pardon my misspelling your name Brit but, having heard the lyrics to all your music, the probability of you being literate is quite low). It seems as though Hubbie Kevin has been bringing his Pot-Dealer to hang around the baby and Brit was none-too impressed. Hopefully Brit's mansion has curbside service to pick up her White-Trash.

If you ask me, Kevin has made a big mistake. Where else can an unemployed scraggily-haired scumbag with a voracious appetite for non-medicinal marijuana find such a rich sugar-momma who shares his trailer park upbringing? If he was smart, he would beg Jerry Springer to help them work their differences out. Otherwise, his only career path will be to tattoo advertisements on his body...

On the bright side, Brit is now single. Maybe Colin Farrel can get some seconds now that his star isn't rising anymore. If not him, there's always John Lovitz.

2005-12-08T16:07:00.000-08:00

If you needed eye surgery, would you go to a Doctor or a very enthusiastic plumber?

Yet Corporate America seems to think that whenever they find an employee too incompetent or lazy to perform most menial tasks, that marketing is the best outlet for their ineptness. Joe Smith is no good at Engineering, Accounting or Sales? No need to hurt his feelings with a firing, let's promote him to Marketing.

What most of these Sweater-Vest wearing Executives do not realize is that Marketing drives product development. As such, a reasonably benign and inept employee now has the power to cripple innovation in the heart of your corporation.

These practices of scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill Marketing have crippled some of the largest corporations in the world. Sony's crippled profits, Microsoft's unstable Xbox 360 and the crap we call American Cars are all the result of an army of polyester wearing Marketing Hacks too stupid to make it as greeters at Wall-Mart.

So if any Executives read this Blog, think of this: Hire professionals with a trusted resume and an impressive portfolio in your industry segment and stop wearing sweater-vests!

2005-11-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

Well Martin,

Your post is a very philosophical one, and while impressive in the depth of it's meaning, it is completely wrong for this blog.

This is a post for ranting and raving (like lunatics), as should be obvious by the name... "The Captain's Blog"!

Someone (who shall remain nameless) is obviously suffering from Star Trek delusions, and the imminent fear of frostbite from mid-west-arctic-american states.

Instead of enhancing this delusion with overly intelligent or philosophical discussions, we should provide more "light fare" discussions. Heres one that I think is worthy of our Cap'n.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000780068906/

2005-11-21T12:08:00.000-08:00

Alex needed a philosopher king on his blog and brought me onboard. So:
"The best test of a religion isn't how happy it makes people when times are rough, but how many people cling to it when it is a time of plenty."

Discuss...

2005-11-21T11:49:00.000-08:00

This is the official start of my Blog. Now I need to see if I am actually going to write someething on it...